Brooklyn subway shooting witness recalls 'mayhem' inside train
NEW YORK - Kenneth Foote-Smith was on the Brooklyn subway train when a man started shooting Tuesday morning. In a live interview with FOX 5 New York, he recalled the terror the passengers felt as it unfolded.
Foote-Smith says he rides the N train to work every day. He says after the train pulled away from the 56th Street Station, he heard a loud bang.
"Almost like glass shattering," Foote-Smith told FOX 5. "It didn't sound like a normal subway noise."
He said the people in his subway car started panicking. He said they started moving forward to the conductor's door at the front of the car.
"There's this white smoke starting to fill up the car behind us and we see people banging on the doors that are between the subway cars."
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He said that the train then came to a stop right before it pulled into the 36th Street Station.
"That's when we hear 'pop, pop, pop' like three or four real quick pops," Foote-Smith said. "And the screaming has now increased. There's more people against the door trying to get out to escape."
VIDEO: Listen to the full interview
He described how he saw a man at the door of the car behind his with "fear in his eyes" and everyone was screaming. The door appeared to be jammed so people could not get out of the subway car.
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Passengers in his car were pleading with the conductor to get the train moving again to get to a station.
He said the train eventually started moving, and he heard more "pops" before the train got to the platform in the station.
Members of the New York Police Department patrol the streets after at least 13 people were injured during a rush-hour shooting at a subway station in the New York borough of Brooklyn on April 12, 2022. (Photo by TIMOTHY A. CLARY/AFP via Getty Images)
When the doors opened, he said, passengers flooded off of the train.
"It's mayhem on the subway platform," Foote-Smith recalled.