NEW YORK (AP) — A 24-year-old man was shot to death following a dispute inside a New York City subway station, police said.
Marcus Bethea was fatally shot in the torso inside the Parsons Boulevard-Archer Avenue station in the Jamaica section of Queens at about 4:30 p.m. Monday, police said in a news release.
Bethea was standing near the token booth when another man engaged him in an argument “that quickly turned physical,” said Jason Wilcox, chief of transit for the New York Police Department, at a briefing at the shooting scene. The other man drew a gun and shot Bethea several times before fleeing, Wilcox said.
The shooting occurred less than two weeks after a gunman opened fire inside a subway car in Brooklyn, shooting 10 people.
Frank James was arrested the day after the April 12 shooting and ordered jailed without bail. Defense attorney Mia Eisner-Grynberg cautioned against “a rush to judgment.”
All of the victims in the Brooklyn shooting are expected to survive.
The shooting inside a busy Brooklyn station raised questions about security inside New York City’s transit system. Acting Metropolitan Transportation Authority Inspector General Elizabeth Keating announced an investigation on Monday into the failure of security cameras at the station in Brooklyn’s Sunset Park neighborhood where the shooting took place.
Wilcox said police have security camera footage from Monday’s shooting in Queens and are reviewing it. No arrests had been made as of Tuesday morning.