NEW YORK, APRIL 14 (US): Frank James posted dozens of videos about race, violence and his struggles with mental illness. One stands out for its relative calm: a silent shot of a crowded New York City subway car in which he raises a finger to point at passengers, one by one.
Even when police arrested James Wednesday in a shooting in a Brooklyn subway that injured 10 people, they are still searching for a motive from a torrent of details about the 62-year-old black man’s life, according to the Associated Press.
Irregular work history. Arrests for a series of mostly low-level crimes. Storage locker with more ammo. And hours of rambling, bigoted, expletive-ridden videos on his YouTube channel pointing to a simmering deep rage.
James says in a video where he is called “Prophet of Death.
After a 30-hour manhunt, James was arrested without incident after a guide – who the police believed was James himself – said he could be found near a McDonald’s on Manhattan’s Lower East Side. Mayor Eric Adams declared victoriously, “We got it!”
Police said their top priority is to get the suspect, now charged with a federal terrorist crime, off the streets as they investigate the biggest unanswered question: Why?
They said the primary clue is his YouTube videos. He seems to have opinions on just about everything – racism in America, the new New York City mayor, the state of mental health services, 9/11, the Russian invasion of Ukraine, and black women.
A federal criminal complaint cited one in which James spoke of too many homeless people on the subway and blamed the mayor of New York City.
“What are you doing, brother?” In the video posted on March 27, he said, “Every car I went to was loaded with homeless people. It was so bad, I couldn’t even stand.”
James then lashed out about the treatment of blacks in an April 6 video that was cited in the complaint, saying, “So the message to me is: I should have gotten a gun, and I just started shooting.”
In a video posted the day before the attack, James criticizes crime against blacks and says things will only change if some people are “run over, kicked and tortured” outside their “comfort zone”.
Security cameras spotted James entering the turnstiles of the subway system Tuesday morning, dressed as a maintenance or construction worker in a yellow hard hat and an orange jacket with reflective tape.
Police say fellow riders only heard him say “oops” when he detonated a smoke bomb in a crowded subway car while storming a station. Police said he then detonated a second smoke bomb and started shooting. Amid the ensuing smoke and chaos, police say James managed to escape by slipping into a train across the platform and exiting after the first stop.
Police said a pistol, extended magazines, an axe, explosive and non-explosive smoke grenades, a black trash can, a rolling cart, petrol and the key to the U-Haul truck were left behind at the scene.
That key led investigators to James, evidence of a life of setbacks and anger as he bounced between factories and maintenance jobs, was fired at least twice, and moved between Milwaukee, Philadelphia, New Jersey and New York.
Investigators said James had 12 previous arrests in New York and New Jersey from 1990 to 2007, including possession of burglary tools, criminal sex, trespassing, theft and disorderly conduct.
James had no felony convictions and was not prohibited from purchasing or possessing a firearm. Police said the pistol used in the attack was legally purchased at a pawnshop in Ohio in 2011. A search of James’ Philadelphia apartment and storage unit revealed at least two types of ammunition, including the kind used in the AR-15 attack. A rifle, a taser and a blue smoke packet.
Police said James was born and raised in New York City. In his videos, he said he finished an apprenticeship at a machine shop in 1983 and then worked as a gear mechanic at Curtiss-Wright, an aerospace manufacturer in New Jersey, until 1991 when he was struck by bad news.
He was fired from his job and soon after his father, who was living with him in New Jersey, died.
Records show that James filed a complaint against the airline in federal court shortly after losing his job claiming racial discrimination, but a judge dismissed it a year later. In one of the videos, he said, without providing details, that he “couldn’t do any justice to what I went through.”
A Curtiss-Wright spokesperson did not immediately respond to a call seeking comment.
James describes getting in and out of several mental health facilities, including two in the Bronx borough of New York City in the 1970s.
“Mr. Mayor, let me tell you that I am a victim of your mental health program in New York City,” James said in a video earlier this year, adding that he was “full of hate, anger, and bitterness.”
James says he was later a patient at Bridgeway House, a mental health facility in New Jersey, although this could not be immediately confirmed. Messages left with the attachment are not returned.
“My goal at Bridgeway in 1997 was to get out of Social Security and go back to…work,” he says in a video, adding that he went to college and took a course in computer-aided design and manufacturing.
James says he eventually landed a job at telecom giant Lucent Technologies in Parsippany, New Jersey, but says he ended up being fired and back at Bridgeway House, this time not as a patient but as a maintenance staff member. A message requesting comment has been sent to Lucent Technologies.
“I just want to work. I want to be a productive person,” he said.
Touches of this hard-working man came to light after James’ crash into Milwaukee’s parked car. Eugene Yarbrough, pastor of Mount Zion Wings of Glory Church at the Church of the Lord in Christ next door to James’ apartment, said James was touched that the pastor had the power to hit the car. Neither James nor anyone else was there to see the accident. Jacob summoned him to say so.
“I couldn’t believe it was going to be him,” Yarbro said. “But who knows what people will do?”