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No one was killed in the horrific attack by Frank James, 62, which left the victims strewn across a smoky 36th Street platform in the Sunset Park section of Brooklyn while igniting underground terror at the height of the morning rush on April 12, 2022.
James took a deal from federal prosecutors rather than risk the consequences of a guilty verdict at a jury trial.
The heavyset and balding domestic terrorist -- who'd dubbed himself the “Prophet of Doom" in an online post -- pleaded guilty in a federal courtroom in Brooklyn this past January to 10 counts of committing an attack or other violence against a mass transportation system.
“Nothing can undo the damage that Frank James’s mass shooting inflicted on the 10 victims who were shot or the dozens more who suffered other injuries," U.S. General Merrick B. Garland said following James's sentencing on Thursday, Oct. 5, "but this sentence ensures that he will spend the rest of his life in prison for the devastation he caused."
James had been raised in the Bronx and lived in several cities -- Newark, NJ, Philadelphia, Chicago, among them -- and most recently in Milwaukee, federal authorities said. He already had a criminal record in New Jersey and New York, they said at the time.
He'd also posted several social media videos in the weeks before the shooting about authorities' inability to handle crime in the New York City subway system.
James had planned the attack for years, buying smoke bombs, disguises, guns and ammo, and even completed multiple practice runs, federal authorities said.
He reached Brooklyn that fateful morning in a rented U-Haul van after staying at an Airbnb in Philadelphia, they said.
James disguised himself in an orange reflective jacket and yellow hard hat to look like a Metropolitan Transportation Authority (MTA) employee.
He then boarded the N train bound for Manhattan at the Kings Highway station with a Glock 17 pistol he legally purchased in Ohio, a smoke bomb and a gas mask.
James ignited the smoke bomb somewhere between the 59th and 36th street stations, authorities said. He then donned the mask and began shooting, they said.
The train was between stations and temporarily stalled, leaving victims trapped.
"Panicked passengers ran to the far end of the subway car, allowing James to shoot at his victims more easily," said a release from the office of U.S. Attorney Breon Peace for the Eastern District of New York.
James unloaded 16 bullets in what became one of the worst attacks on a city subway in years. Then he fled the scene.
During his plea hearing in January, James told U.S. District Judge William F. Kuntz II that his intent was to "cause serious bodily injury to the people on the train."
James changed his clothes frequently to evade detection, investigators said. He also bought a burner phone that he used to follow the news coverage, they said -- and watched a James Bond chase scene from the movie “No Time to Die” 10 times.
James surrendered in Manhattan's East Village 36 hours after the attack by calling the NYPD's Crime Stoppers hotline.
Law enforcement officers seized ammo and weapons parts -- including a threaded 9mm pistol barrel made for silencers -- a high-capacity rifle magazine, a Taser and a blue smoke canister, authorities said.
The New York Joint Terrorism Task Force investigated the case, with what Peace said was valuable assistance provided by the Metropolitan Transportation Authority (MTA) and the ATF.
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