Frank R. James, the 62-year-old person of interest in the Brooklyn Subway mass shooting on Tuesday, had a history of incendiary social media posts. He used them to rant about coming race wars, gun violence, homeless people, and how outreach workers are “homosexual predators.”
On Tuesday morning, 10 people were shot in a Brooklyn subway station while another 13 were injured. Sunday night, just days before the Brooklyn attack, the primary person of interest Frank R. James ranted in a YouTube video about how the war in Ukraine could bring about a race war to exterminate black people.
Warning: Extreme language follows…
“They’re white, you’re not. They’re doing that to each other? What do they think they’re going to do to you?” he said. “It’s just a matter of time before these white motherfuckers say, ‘Hey listen, enough is enough, these n*****s gotta go.’ What’re you going to do? You gonna fight. And guess what? You gonna die.”
A person is aided outside a subway car in the Brooklyn borough of New York, Tuesday, April 12, 2022. A gunman filled a rush-hour subway train with smoke and shot multiple people, leaving wounded commuters bleeding on a Brooklyn platform as others ran screaming, authorities said. (Will B Wylde via AP)
In another video posted on April 11, James ranted about how he “wanted to kill people.”
“I’ve been through a lot of shit, where I can say I wanted to kill people,” he said. “I wanted to watch them die right in front of my fucking face immediately. But I thought about the fact, ‘Hey, I don’t want to go to no fucking prison. Fuck that! I’m not going to no fucking prison. I’m just not.”
In another video posted on March 27, James ranted against homeless people in New York City’s subway system and criticized Mayor Eric Adams.
“Eric Adams, Eric Adams, what the fuck, what are you doing, brother? What’s happening with this homeless situation? I got on the E train, every fucking car … every car I went to was loaded with homeless people,” he said.
NYPD Commissioner Keechant Sewell said the department did not consider James’ comments as threats against Adams.
New York City Police Commissioner Keechant Sewell speaks at a news briefing on April 12, 2022 in New York City. A gunman in a gas mask and construction vest set off a smoke grenade and opened fire on a subway today at the 36th Street and Fourth Avenue station in the Sunset Park neighborhood of Brooklyn. Authorities named 62-year-old Philadelphia man Frank R. James as a person of interest. (Alexi J. Rosenfeld/Getty Images)
“We’re not calling them threats. He made some concerning posts, or someone made some concerning posts,” she said. “They were general topics of concern. Complaints about homelessness, complaints about New York.”
Another video from February 20 featured James talking about dealing with mental health outreach workers through the 1970s and 1990s, referring to them as “homosexual predators.”
“So as you listen to the mayor talking about how they want to bring in health workers, they want to help the homeless … there’s no help. It’s going to fail! Because all these motherfuckers are predators. They’re homosexual predators trying to turn everybody out,” he said.
His Facebook page listed under the name Frank Whitaker featured a variety of incendiary posts and links, including a video in which he discussed how to make a bomb. He also lamented about the newly minted Supreme Court Justice Ketanji Brown Jackson marrying a white man.
“She married the devil,” said James.
No deaths have yet been reported in the shooting and Frank James still remains at large.
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