An 18-year-old woman was shot in the chest on a Brooklyn subway platform overnight during a struggle over her purse, and police in Crown Heights are still searching for the gunman who fled the station immediately after the attack. According to officials, the shooting unfolded at around 11:45 p.m. Sunday on the downtown No. 2 platform at the President Street, Medgar Evers College station.
Investigators say the suspect yanked at the young woman's purse as she stood on the platform, and the confrontation quickly escalated into a physical scuffle. During that struggle the gunman fired a single shot, striking her in the chest before wrenching the bag free and running off into the night, leaving other riders on the platform in a panic.
Officers who reached the station did not wait for an ambulance. They rushed the wounded woman to Kings County Hospital in their own police cruiser, a decision that may have proven critical given the severity of a gunshot wound to the chest. By Monday morning she was listed in stable condition as doctors continued to treat her.
Detectives later recovered the stolen bag roughly two miles from the station, on Pacific Street, where the suspect appears to have discarded it after going through its contents. The location of the abandoned purse has given investigators another fixed point along the route the gunman took as he tried to put distance between himself and the scene.
Police have released a detailed description of the man they are looking for. Witness accounts and video place him in a red Yankees cap bearing the white logo, black shorts, black sneakers, a black face mask and a backpack. He remained at large early Monday, and officers were still canvassing the streets around the station well into the morning hours.
A worker at a nearby business allowed a reporter to review surveillance footage recorded on the night of the shooting. The video clearly showed a person matching the description that police had circulated walking past just after the gunfire, adding another image to the trail that detectives are now piecing together as they trace the suspect's movements.
Separate video captured on a community safety app showed a large crowd gathered on the platform as officers responded to the scene. The station, a busy transfer point in Crown Heights served by the downtown No. 2 line, drew a heavy police presence in the minutes after the shots rang out, with responding units fanning out across the surrounding blocks.
Anyone with information about the attack has been asked to contact police, who continue to treat the case as an armed robbery that turned into a shooting. The victim's condition was described as stable on Monday morning, even as the hunt for the gunman entered its first full day and residents in the neighborhood were left shaken by the violence at a station many of them use every day.