Steph Deschamps / February 16, 2024
One person died and five others were injured on Monday after shots were fired on a New York subway platform, the police announced.
The deceased was a 34-year-old man, and the five injured were two women and three other men, aged between 14 and 71, NYPD officers told a news briefing at the foot of the subway system in New York's Bronx borough, the city's most disadvantaged.
Late Monday afternoon, two groups of young people were "arguing" on a train entering the station when a member of one group pulled out a gun and opened fire on the platform, just as the carriage doors were opening and passengers were boarding and alighting, Kemper explained.
The police officer did not identify the victims, except to say that "one of them, a 34-year-old man, had unfortunately died" in hospital.
Among the five wounded hospitalized, the New York Fire Department (FDNY) counted four "seriously" injured, according to an e-mail to AFP.
The gunman is on the run, and police are appealing for witnesses.
At the Bronx's Mount Eden Avenue station, which was completely sealed off, the subway was overhead and an AFP photographer saw numerous police and emergency vehicles. Television drone footage showed the train at a standstill, with plainclothes police and investigators busy on the platform.
"This is not normal. Shootings like this in the metro system are extremely rare and unacceptable," assured police officer M. Kemper.
Crime and gun homicides in particular have been on the decline in New York since 2022-2023, after the Covid pandemic, and the carrying of weapons in public is strictly regulated here, compared with other US cities and states.