A maniac possibly disguised as an MTA worker unleashed bloody hell on a Brooklyn subway train during the early-morning rush Tuesday, injuring at least 29 people — including 10 who were shot — when he set off a smoke grenade and opened fire in the car, authorities said.
A jammed Glock and two extended ammo magazines were later recovered at the scene — suggesting the gunman could have unleashed more mayhem if his weapon hadn’t malfunctioned, law enforcement sources told The Post.
The shooter — who has been on the run for hours — was wearing a “green construction-type vest” and gas mask when he launched his bloody assault aboard a Manhattan-bound N train around 8:24 a.m. just as the subway was pulling into the 36th Street station in Sunset Park, NYPD Commissioner Keechant Sewell said during a news briefing at the scene.
“An individual on that train donned what appeared to be a gas mask. He then took a canister out of his bag and opened it,” Sewell said. “The train at that time began to fill with smoke. He then opened fire, striking multiple people on the subway and on the platform.”
Investigators initially believed the suspect may have boarded an R train at the same station and fled at the next stop on 25th Street, but police are still investigating exactly how he escaped. Police have only released a bare-bones description of the mass shooter and said he is a roughly 5-foot-5 black man with a heavy build at around 170 pounds.
Late Tuesday afternoon, cops found a U-Haul van in Brooklyn that they believe the suspect rented, sources said. The truck, which had Arizona plates, was located on West Third Street near Kings Highway.
Detectives had found a credit card at the scene that they suspected belonged to the shooter, and one of the charges racked up on it is for a U-Haul rental out of Philadelphia, law-enforcement sources said.
Sewell said the shooting isn’t being investigated as an act of terrorism at the moment and noted none of the victims were of a particular ethnic group, but she also added that no motive has been ruled out.
The suspect shot 10 people, including five who are in critical but stable condition, the FDNY said.
Some of the victims suffered smoke inhalation, but none of the injured have life-threatening injuries, Sewell said. A pregnant woman was among those hospitalized, sources said, while a slew of injured victims walked into hospitals themselves for treatment, officials said.
After a search of the scene, police recovered the jammed gun and the extended magazines, which are capable of holding more bullets than the standard number of rounds found in a typical clip.
“It was lucky that it jammed because we could be talking about a lot more people in hospitals or worse,’’ a law-enforcement source said. “Dozens more people would have been wounded or more seriously injured.’’
Cops also found a slew of other weapons, including a hatchet, a can of pepper spray, two gas canisters, a bag full of fireworks and another satchel holding what appears to be BB pellets at the scene, sources said. It’s not immediately clear if all of the items belonged to the shooter.
An image of one of the bags and obtained by The Post showed a number of smoke bombs, fireworks and some type of green wire.
The FDNY said earlier Tuesday that several undetonated devices were found at the 36th Street station. The NYPD later said, “There are no active explosive devices at this time.”
