Not like different New Yorkers lately, Kenneth Foote-Smith felt usually secure on the subway. Final yr, at a pal’s urging, the twenty-five-year-old paralegal reluctantly agreed to cease using the A line, after two homeless individuals have been stabbed to loss of life on the prepare. In any other case, Foote-Smith saved using. He tended to keep away from the 1, 2, and three, primarily as a result of they couldn’t be relied on, however he took the N daily to and from work. In his thoughts, it stood out from all different subway traces within the metropolis. “This was my favorite,” he instructed me.
At about eight o’clock on Tuesday morning, Foote-Smith boarded an N prepare certain for midtown Manhattan from the Fifty-ninth Avenue station in Sundown Park, Brooklyn. Seconds after the doorways closed, a person in an adjoining automobile placed on a gasoline masks, dropped two smoke grenades to the ground, and opened hearth with a Glock 9-millimetre handgun. The man who was arrested twenty-four hours after the capturing, sixty-two-year-old Frank R. James, apparently fired thirty-three photographs, wounding about two dozen riders round him.
Foote-Smith watched trapped passengers attempt to flee for his or her lives and beg for assist. “It was the longest thirty seconds of my absolute life,” he mentioned. When the prepare pulled into the subsequent station, at Thirty-sixth Avenue, Foote-Smith ran out of the automobile, surrounded by panicked passengers, some gasping for air and crawling onto a platform tinged with blood. The attacker disappeared into the gang, leaving a hatchet, fireworks, and three ammunition magazines behind.
Hours after the attack, I spoke with Foote-Smith about what he witnessed, the way it modified his view of town, and which metropolis officers and businesses he felt had failed him and different passengers. The conductor on his prepare, Foote-Smith mentioned, appeared unprepared. The M.T.A. didn’t instantly reply to a request for remark. His account has been condensed and edited for readability.
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“I awakened a bit of sooner than I often do, made breakfast, and browse a chapter of the ebook ‘101 Essays That Will Change the Way You Think.’ I like beginning my morning like this. Sufficient to consider on my fast seven-minute stroll to the station. It’s my on a regular basis commute for the previous three months, since I moved to Bay Ridge-Sundown Park. I depart at seven-fifty each morning so I can get to work at 8:40 to eight:50 A.M., relying on whether or not the prepare exhibits up.
“I acquired to the station. I acquired all the way down to the platform, and I used to be standing on the platform on the entrance as a result of I like to sit down on the very entrance of the prepare. I don’t know why—I do know it’s statistically not safer. And as we speak, when the prepare pulled up, it was a bit of too packed for me. I’m a taller particular person. I’m, like, six toes two, 200 and thirty kilos, so I’m sort of an even bigger man. I don’t actually wish to be shoulder to shoulder. So, I used to be, like, No large deal—I noticed on the signal after I was strolling down that the subsequent N prepare can be right here in two minutes. And that was the choice that modified my whole day—to attend for the subsequent prepare.
“The subsequent prepare arrives, and I’m, like, Oh, excellent, there’s not that many individuals. Couldn’t get a seat however I acquired my subsequent favourite spot, which is standing in opposition to the door on the facet of the categorical prepare that doesn’t open. And so, I used to be simply standing there. I used to be on my telephone studying a Japanese manga. I wish to learn these on the subway: fast 4 scenes, subsequent web page, and I can learn two or three pages in between stops. Actual good and straightforward to digest.
“I all the time have these large headphones on. I’d a lot fairly hear my music than the wonderful sounds of the subway. It was in all probability just a few constructive rap. SoundCloud rap, good beat, makes you are feeling good when you’re studying a manga.
“We depart Fifty-ninth Avenue, and, as soon as we acquired into the a part of the tunnel the place you sort of lose service for a bit of bit, that’s when issues occurred. There was this enormous bang, virtually seemed like glass shattering. It sounded unnatural. It wasn’t a standard subway noise. And so, that prompted me to take a headphone off. And I sort of, like, scanned towards the conductor’s door, after which, as I used to be turning again towards the tip of the prepare the place the connector door is to get to the opposite subway automobile, everybody will get up and shuffles all the best way towards me, just about all in entrance of me. And I’m, like, What’s happening?
“Earlier than I can really flip my head, I hear three large bangs—bang, bang, bang—and it sounded proper on prime of us, very shut, a lot louder than the primary bang. It was a totally totally different tone and sound. I flip my head, and I see a gentleman banging on the subway door and making an attempt to open it. I’m that man lifeless within the face at this level, making an attempt to make out, Is he mentally ailing? Is he sort of having an episode? He was ferociously making an attempt to open this door, like, with no regard for his physique and throwing all his power into it. It’s reckless to open this door, and I’m, like, Why is he making an attempt so onerous? After which I seemed behind him. I see this white smoke filling the prepare automobile. It’s possibly, like, already midway up the prepare automobile by the point I seen, however I might nonetheless sort of see into the automobile. What I see is three faces smashed in opposition to the glass. And it’s three ladies’s faces slamming on the door, screaming for assist.
“There’s a sign cease proper earlier than the prepare pulls into the subsequent station. And it often stops for, like, a minute or thirty seconds—longest thirty seconds of my absolute life. All I might do was watch. I might make out the man’s face and I noticed terror. I seemed into his eyes and I noticed worry. As soon as I noticed the man banging on the door, I fully took off my headphones and began texting my shut pal. I used to be, like, ‘Something’s up, the prepare automobile behind me is smoking.’ However I didn’t actually have service.
“I used to be praying that it was {an electrical} hearth or, like, some upkeep situation on the prepare. My coronary heart drops, my abdomen drops, and I really feel panic beginning to swell over me. And I sort of look across the prepare. I take a look at everybody else’s faces. Some persons are recording, and I see that very same panic and that fear washing over individuals. They’re beginning to yell for the conductor. You understand, ‘Move the train, please!’ After which we hear the three, 4—bop, bop, bop, bops—actual fast, again to again. All of us knew what it was however nobody needed to say something. We have been simply screaming for the conductor to maneuver the prepare. The screams are getting louder. The man was banging on the door tougher. I couldn’t see into the automobile anymore as a result of it was now fully stuffed with smoke at that time.
“The ladies who have been initially in opposition to the door opened it, and now individuals have been sort of spilling out onto the small platform between the subway vehicles and screaming. Now we will hear the screams. It’s way more audible. And it sort of jogged my memory of a scene within the zombie film with all of the—simply the desperation, and the sort of reckless abandonment, making an attempt to push via one thing or, like, push via a locked door or damaged door. It felt like a horror film. And we have been frozen on our prepare. Nobody did something till after they opened the door between the vehicles, after which a gentleman greater than me, a big male, God bless him, courageous as hell, comes and tries to open the door from our facet. I wasn’t going to be the one who tried to do this as a result of I didn’t know who this man was on the opposite facet of the door. As a result of in my head I mentioned that he might have been the shooter. The man tries to open the door, makes use of all of his energy, however the door doesn’t budge in any respect. So, lastly, proper after he tries the door, the prepare strikes. Because the prepare is pulling into the station, we hear the bop-bop-bops, three extra once more, actual fast, three or 4 extra. And, at this level, we’re all huddled in opposition to the doorways to get out.
“That’s when it turns into an absolute maelstrom. As quickly because the doorways opened, individuals flooded out the gates, like a race. They have been coughing, protecting their faces, crying, absolute hysteria, bodily shaking. I noticed individuals who have been shot limp out and simply sort of lie on the bottom. The scariest half was that we didn’t know what the shooter seemed like as a result of, as individuals have been operating off the prepare, they have been screaming, ‘He’s acquired a gun,’ ‘He’s acquired a bomb,’ ‘He’s capturing,’ ‘Everyone, get down,’ ‘He’s acquired gasoline masks,’ ‘He’s an M.T.A. man.’ Individuals have been saying so many issues. And I didn’t know actually what to do. There was a pillar towards the tip of the platform, and I used to be proper behind it, sticking half my physique out, making an attempt to evaluate what was actually happening, and making sense of it. Proper because the N prepare stopped, the R on the other facet of the platform pulled up.
