An eyewitness who said he was in the subway car where the Brooklyn shooting took place described the chaos at the scene, saying he saw a lot of blood on the floor and that gunshots sounded like fireworks.
The subway conductor said the train was delayed due to train traffic minutes before the train got to the 36th Street platform in Sunset Park, according to Yav Montano, and that’s when smoke suddenly engulfed the car.
He then heard “what I thought was fireworks but now hearing that it was gunshots and I’m thankful I hid behind one of the chairs. … I honestly have no words for what I’ve experienced.”
“I was in the front end of the third car and everything happened at the back end of the same car. … As soon as the smoke, like, flared up, it started to engulf everything. People started migrating to the front of the car,” he told CNN.
Multiple people were found shot upon arrival to a call for a smoke condition at the 36th Street and 4th Avenue subway station at approximately 8:30 a.m. ET Tuesday, according to the New York City Fire Department. The New York City Police Department said there are no active explosive devices “at this time” at the subway station, where multiple people were shot. “Several undetonated devices” were found earlier, according to the FDNY.
Montano said a rider tried to open the car door connecting to a separate car, but he could not open it.
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“There was blood on the floor. There was a lot of blood trailing on the floor. And at the time in the moment, I did not think it was a shooting because it sounded like fireworks. All I saw was people trampling each other, trampling over each other, trying to get into the door which was locked and just a lot of panic, but thankfully, the train moved quickly to the next stop and everyone filed off the train in a rush,” he said.
He had a mask on in the train, but he couldn’t use it anymore because it was “black with smoke.”
He estimated about 40 to 50 people were in the subway car with him. Montano said he tried to hide and make space for an elderly woman near him. She “even handed me her little pepper spray from her purse just in case something happened. She gave it to me out of her purse and said use it just in case,” he said.
He recorded a short video, but a man next to him advised him to put his phone away.
Montano said he is now at work in Williamsburg, Brooklyn.
Watch his interview with CNN:
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