NEW YORK — The subway shooting suspect still on the run Wednesday was apparently sleeping inside a rented van on a Brooklyn street in the days before his bloody rampage aboard the N train, sources told the New York Daily News.
Police discovered a portable heater, clothes and other items suggesting suspect Frank James was living in the vehicle with Arizona license plates, sources said. No other weapons were found inside James’ vehicle after the shooting spree in which 10 passengers were wounded during the Tuesday morning rush hour, sources said.
The 61-year-old suspected shooter left a Glock 9 mm handgun inside the train as he escaped in the chaos, police had said. The weapon was traced to a pawn shop in Ohio.
Police said the suspect, who had a criminal history in both Philadelphia and Wisconsin, was spending most of his time in nearby Pennsylvania. He was also arrested for allegedly making terroristic threats in a New Jersey case that appears to involve domestic stalking, sources said, and one of the other priors was for possession of burglary tools.
James left behind a collection of online ramblings, including one YouTube video titled “Sensible Violence.” In another video, the suspect says he was diagnosed with a mental illness and treated in the Bronx during the 1970s.
In a posted cellphone video from the summer of 2020, the suspected gunman pans around a crowded subway car and mumbles something unintelligible.
The clip, posted online under the name “Prophet of Truth88,” captured video shot from the rear of a car looking forward — the same perspective James had when he rose from a seat on the N train and opened fire before going on the lam.
“You say job, I say bad joke,” he declared in another video. “I’d rather jack a motherf---er, watch the gunsmoke. You gonna be caught in the crossfire, your kids are gonna be caught in the crossfire. I’m expected to be violent.”
In a more recent YouTube rant that goes on for more than 80 minutes, the suspect explains his belief in what he described as “sensible violence.”
“I’m saying not, it’s not senseless,” he declares in the video posted April 5. “There’s a source, there’s a reason. ... It’s violence that f---ing makes sense if you think about.”
He goes on to blame Black women for such incidents because they believe “violence is sexy.”
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