Frank James, the man identified by the New York City Police Department as a person of interest in the Brooklyn subway shooting, spoke about the violence and mass shootings in multiple confusing videos posted on YouTube, including one uploaded on Monday in which he says he thought about killing people who have presumably hurt him.
The NYPD has identified James as a person of interest because they believe he rented a U-Haul van whose keys were found at the scene of the shooting. Police are currently investigating whether he has any connection to the shooting and have not identified him as a suspect.
GLM has linked the YouTube videos to James because a screenshot of one of them is being used in a flyer for the New York Police Department’s program Crime Stoppers. Also, in one of the videos, he posts a New York City ID card from a previous educational training program.
In what appears to be his last video posted Monday, James talks about someone who committed violence and ended up in jail. He said that he could identify himself, but spoke of the consequences.
“I’ve been through a lot of shit, where I can say I wanted to kill people. I wanted to see people die right in front of my fucking face right away. But I thought about the fact that, hey man, I don’t want to go to any damn prison.”
GLM has reached out to James and his family for comment but has not received a response.
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Videos include racist and misogynistic language
Many of the videos James uploaded included references to violence, including towards a certain group of people he believed had defamed him, as well as broad social and racial groups he seemed to hate.
In another video posted last week, James, who is black, rants about abuse in churches and racism in the workplace, using misogynistic and racist language.
After speaking about community violence, James said, “We need to see more mass shootings. Yeah… We need to see more, there needs to be more mass shootings for everyone to understand… It’s not about the shooter, it’s about the environment in whoever is found, he has to exist”.
That speech was a common theme throughout James’ videos, in which he repeatedly espoused hatred of African-Americans.
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In another video posted last month to the same channel, James said he had post-traumatic stress. In that video, James said he left his home in Milwaukee on March 20. During the drive east, he said he was heading into the “danger zone.”
“You know, it’s causing a lot of negative thoughts, of course,” he said in the video. “I have a severe case of post-traumatic stress.”
Increase security of the mayor
Preliminary information indicated that James mentioned homelessness, New York City and the city’s new mayor, Eric Adams, in online posts, New York Police Commissioner Keechant Sewell said Tuesday, adding that, as a result, the city would increase the security of the mayor.
Police released two photos of James at a news conference Tuesday night, including one that appeared to be a screenshot of a YouTube video he had posted.
New York police said keys belonging to a U-Haul vehicle that had been rented in his name in Philadelphia were found among the gunman’s possessions at the scene of the Brooklyn shooting.
Police were careful to refer to James only as a “person of interest” because of the connection to the U-Haul rental, noting that he was not being charged with being the shooter at this time.
The videos give an idea of James’ path to the northeast. He arrived in Philadelphia on March 25 after calls at Fort Wayne, Indiana; Pittsburgh, and Newark, New Jersey.