A man suspected of shooting a bystander and firing at an officer after a botched robbery in Times Square on Thursday night was within reach of police — but was able to flee into the night when he entered New York City’s vast subway system.
The city’s transit system is among the world’s busiest and most comprehensive, which often makes it a backdrop for crime and a means of escape for criminals. Despite wall-to-wall cameras outside stations and surveillance within them, suspects have been able to elude capture by running through busy stations, entering the tracks, or even simply by boarding trains.
Police chased the suspected shooter into the subway station at the corner of West 47th Street and Sixth Avenue on Thursday night, after he’d allegedly tried to steal from a sports store in Times Square, shot a bystander in the leg and fired at police.
But police lost track of the suspect once he reached the station, according to a briefing by NYPD officials after the incident. He was later seen on surveillance footage making his way onto the tracks, changing clothes and dashing back out of the subway station to parts unknown, said NYPD Chief of Patrol John Chell.
“Subway cameras were instrumental in getting us better pictures of the person we’re looking for,” Chell said following a press briefing Friday afternoon.
There are more than 10,000 surveillance cameras in the subway system, the MTA told Gothamist in 2022 shortly after a mass subway shooting at Sunset Park’s 36th Street subway station that injured more than two dozen people.
“The problem with cameras though, is it’s really only good for after the fact, right? It’s not really like a preventative tool,” said Christopher Herrmann, an assistant professor in the Department of Law and Police Science at CUNY’s John Jay College of Criminal Justice.
Video footage from subway stations often helps police identify suspects in the wake of a crime, but cameras usually can’t help while the chase is still…
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