A man was shot inside a Midtown Manhattan subway station Saturday afternoon, police said, triggering a scramble of emergency crews and a round of subway service changes as the investigation got underway. Police described the victim only as male and had not released his age as the inquiry continued.
According to CBS News, the shooting happened at the 57th Street-Seventh Avenue subway station early Saturday afternoon. A separate account from jingletree.com cited the NYPD as saying the gunfire erupted on the 7th Avenue platform at 53rd Street at 12:21 p.m., so the precise location within the Midtown transit complex has not been pinned down consistently across reports.
Per the same jingletree.com account, the victim was apparently shot in the chest, according to police sources, and CPR was reportedly being administered at the scene, per radio reports relayed by the outlet. CBS News reported that the victim was taken to a local hospital in critical condition and was pronounced dead there.
Trains Diverted As Investigation Unfolds
The MTA said C and D trains were bypassing the Seventh Avenue station because of the NYPD investigation, CBS News reported. E trains, meanwhile, were running on the F line between West Fourth Street-Washington Square and Jackson Heights-Roosevelt Avenue while the station remained affected.
Police confirmed the investigation was ongoing Saturday. CBS News reported that the gunman fled on foot, police released photos of a person wanted in connection with the shooting and described the clothing he was last seen wearing, and no weapons were recovered at the scene. The exact length of the service disruption was not specified.
A Rare Incident Amid Historic Lows
The shooting comes as New York City has posted record-low violent crime numbers for much of the year. Through September, the city recorded 489 shooting incidents, 594 shooting victims and 203 murders, all record lows for the first nine months of a year, according to abc7ny.com. Compared with 2021, 846 fewer people were shot during the same nine-month stretch, the outlet reported, and major crime citywide declined 6.6% compared with the same period last year.
Between July and September alone, the city logged 167 shooting incidents, 213 shooting victims and 73 murders — each the lowest total on record for that quarter, per the same report. Transit crime bucked the broader trend slightly, rising 0.9% from the same period last year.
No arrests or charges had been announced in Saturday's subway shooting as of the latest update, and police had released photos of a person wanted in connection with the shooting.
