Subway Attack Suspect Identified - Unhinged Black Nationalist Diatribes Discovered
Police are seeking an apparent black nationalist in connection with the Tuesday subway attack in Brooklyn in which 10 victims were shot and at least 29 injured overall.
The man, identified as 63-year-old Frank James, had a volatile collection of social media postings, including one in which he said he was “entering the danger zone,” according to the New York Post.
After first identifying James as a “person of interest” in the attack, police labeled him a “suspect” Wednesday morning, according to CNN.
This is Frank James who is a person of interest in this investigation. Any information can be directed to @NYPDTips at 800-577-TIPS. pic.twitter.com/yBpenmsX67
— NYPD NEWS (@NYPDnews) April 12, 2022
Police traced James in a trail that began with a credit card and a van key left at the scene and then led to a U-Haul found later in Brooklyn, according to the Post. Police said that they believed James had been living out of the van, the Post reported.
Breaking: NYPD named Frank James as a person of interest in the #Brooklyn mass shooting. I looked into his social media. Like the Waukesha suspect & the Louisville BLM activist who allegedly tried to assassinate a mayoral candidate, he appeared to be a fan of black nationalism. pic.twitter.com/aUQZGakJfW
— Andy Ngô ?️? (@MrAndyNgo) April 12, 2022
“Mr. Mayor, I’m a victim of your mental health program,” James said in one lengthy video, addressing New York City Mayor Eric Adams. “I’m 63 now full of hate, full of anger, and full of bitterness.”
Rolling Stone magazine surveyed the online presence James carved for himself on YouTube and Facebook, and came away with this summary: “Racist. Anti-Semitic. Unhinged.”
WARNING: The following video contains graphic language that some viewers will find offensive.
BREAKING: NYPD named person of interest Frank James posted on YouTube days ago that “blacks and whites should not even be in the same hemisphere” and made several threats to women who offended him saying their place is “off this f*cking planet”
MORE: https://t.co/l6XKuD0gJo pic.twitter.com/K4qIftyqqp
— Drew Hernandez (@DrewHLive) April 13, 2022
On March 23, the magazine reported, James posted a video on one of his prime themes – race.
“White people and black people should not have any contact with each other,” he said, according to Rolling Stone. “Their anger is building up. Nothing can happen here differently than what happened over in Europe with the Jews. I want you to believe that that’s possible.”
On March 2, Rolling Stone reported, James attacked Adams over the mayor’s crime and homelessness policies and, posting a series of photos of behavioral health workers, said they were “the people that was supposed to be helping me. They made me worse.
“They made me more dangerous than I could ever — than anything, anyone could ever f***ing imagine. These are the people that Eric Adams wants to send out to help the homeless and whatever the case may be. It ain’t gonna happen,” he said.
Frank James, the wanted person of interest in the #Brooklyn subway mass shooting, has a Twitter account where he posted support for black nationalist group Nation of Islam. He also shared video of Tariq Nasheed. pic.twitter.com/dNZjJNxYxh
— Andy Ngô ?️? (@MrAndyNgo) April 13, 2022
James also posted support for Nation of Islam leader Louis Farrakhan and, like the anti-Semitic Farrakhan, espoused black nationalist ideas and targeted Jews in his rants.
In one tirade, he said Jews “have so much contempt for blacks,” according to Rolling Stone.
“These Jews obviously haven’t learned s*** from their experience,” he said, referring to the Holocaust. “You know, it hasn’t humbled them in the slightest. They’re all — or the majority of them — still arrogant and still feel they’re superior and something above black people.”
And there was the video made one day before the attack.
“I’ve been through a lot of s***, where I can say I wanted to kill people. I wanted to watch people die right in front of my f***ing face immediately,” he said, according to Rolling Stone. “But, I thought about the fact that, ‘Hey man, I don’t wanna go to no f***ing prison.’ F*** that … So, I had to absorb the bull****. Even though it was building up inside me, what could I do? Not much.”
In a video cited by the New York Post, James talked about a race war.
James said in the videos that he had a diagnosed mental illness and railed against what he called the “horror show” of the city’s mental health services.
He also cited the Russian invasion of Ukraine as proof that a race war is coming against blacks, the Post reported.
“These white mother****ers, this is what they do,” he said, according to the Post. “Ultimately at the end of the day they kill and commit genocide against each other. What do you think they gonna do to your black ass?”
“It’s just a matter of time before these white mother****ers decide, ‘Hey listen. Enough is enough. These ni****s got to go,’” he said.
“And what’re you going to do? You gonna fight. And guess what? You gonna die. Cause unlike President [Zelenskyy] over in Ukraine, nobody has your back. The whole world is against you. And you’re against your f***ing self. So why should you be alive again is the f***ing question. Why should a ni**er be alive on this planet? Besides to pick cotton or chop sugar cane or tobacco.”
His conclusion: To commit crime or violence.
“And so the message to me is: I should have gotten a gun, and just started shooting mother****ers,” he said.
“Or I should have gotten some dope and started shooting or starting hitting bit**es in the head, robbing old ladies, you know what the f*** it is.”
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