Former NYPD captain says subway gunman 'deliberately' chose when to open fire so he'd be able to make a quick escape

• The Brooklyn subway shooter "deliberately" chose when to open fire so he could make a quick escape, a retired NYPD captain told Insider.
• "He picked his timing pretty much to optimize death," said the former cop, Jim Dooley.

The Brooklyn subway mass shooter "deliberately" chose to open fire while the train was between stations, likely so he could make a quick escape the moment the train pulled in, a former New York Police Department captain told Insider on Wednesday.

Authorities said the at-large gunman in Tuesday morning's shooting put on a gas mask and detonated two smoke grenades right before he fired 33 rounds at commuters in the second car of a Manhattan-bound N train as it approached the 36th Street station in Sunset Park.

Ten riders were struck by gunfire, while more than a dozen others were wounded with injuries related to smoke inhalation, falling down, or panic attacks.

"He picked his timing pretty much to optimize death," Jim Dooley, a retired NYPD captain and adjunct assistant professor at New York's John Jay College of Criminal Justice, told Insider.

"He concentrated all his attacks to the one car. He didn't go from car to car. [There] was a methodology to this," Dooley, 56, said, adding, "I believe he deliberately picked between stations figuring he would unload his gun, and then the second the doors open, he'd be gone."

The shooting suspect — identified by the NYPD on Wednesday as 62-year-old Frank R. James — quickly fled the scene after the 8:30 a.m. rampage.

James was arrested by police in Manhattan on Wednesday afternoon following a massive manhunt.

New York City agencies had offered up a $50,000 reward for any information leading to the arrest and indictment of the gunman.

Though New York City is one of the most surveilled cities in the world, the shooter had managed to evade authorities for more than 24 hours.

"He acted quickly," Dooley explained. "And when someone acts quickly, if a uniformed officer is not right there, unfortunately, it is difficult to apprehend the suspect."

A police official told reporters there were no officers present in the station at the time of the shooting, but that the station had been patrolled "several times" in the hours before.

Soon after the shooting, NYC Mayor Eric Adams said the surveillance camera system malfunctioned at the 36th Street train station where wounded travelers spilled out onto the platform from a smoke-filled train car in the aftermath of the bloodshed.

NYPD Chief of Detectives James Essig told reporters on Tuesday that there were three train stations where "the video wasn't working," but did not name which stations.

"We're still investigating that to see why or how, whether it was a mechanical problem or an electrical issue, why those videos weren't up," Essig said.

The NYPD and the Metropolitan Transportation Authority on Wednesday did not immediately respond to requests for comment by Insider for more information about the purportedly faulty cameras.

MTA CEO Janno Lieber said Wednesday during an interview on "CBS Mornings" crews had been working on an apparent "server problem" with at least one of the cameras near the turnstile of the 36th Street station.

"But the bigger issue is there's so much video evidence from all of the stations on this line that there are images that are going to be found," Lieber said.

Additionally, NYPD Chief of Department Kenneth Corey dismissed a report of a faulty radio used by an officer at the scene, saying the issue was "user error" and not "a problem with the actual radio."

Even if the surveillance cameras had been properly working, the video would have likely "been very poor" because the shooter — who police said was also wearing a surgical mask and a construction helmet — would have had his face "obscured," Dooley said.

"When you're wearing that mask and the hat, it really does obscure a lot of your face, very difficult to get a description. It would have been difficult, if not impossible," said Dooley, a 23-year NYPD veteran.

The NYPD first identified James first as a "person of interest" in the case on Tuesday after cops said they discovered a credit card and a key to a U-Haul that authorities said was rented by James at the scene of the shooting.

Those items were among others left at the scene, including a Glock 17 9mm handgun, three extended magazines, a hatchet, gasoline, and fireworks, authorities said.

Police began circulating images of James on Tuesday night nearly 12 hours after the shooting.