MTA Watchdog Probes Subway Camera Failures After Brooklyn Shooting

NEW YORK CITY — A camera malfunction that left cops without footage from a Brooklyn mass shooting in the subway needs to be explained, said MTA’s watchdog.

MTA Inspector General Elizabeth Keating announced Monday that she opened an investigation into cameras in the city’s subway system.

“As the horrific mass shooting two weeks ago in Sunset Park has raised questions about the MTA camera system, the Office of the Inspector General has initiated an inquiry into why the cameras were not transmitting on April 12 and a review of the maintenance and repair program for the critical equipment,” she said in a statement.

The bloody shooting in a Sunset Park subway station prompted a city-wide manhunt for a gas-masked suspect who detonated two smoke grenades before firing at least 33 bullets. Ten people were shot out of at least 23 people who suffered injuries in the smoky chaos, authorities said.

But NYPD officials didn’t release footage from the attack for hours afterward — a delay officials attributed in part to malfunctions in station cameras that failed to connect to the internet and transmit footage.

The malfunctions prompted questions over MTA’s transit security system, including from congressional representatives.

MTA officials have responded by highlighting successes in the subway camera system. NYPD investigators, as NYC Transit’s interim head Craig Cipriano noted Monday, were able to get 36 separate video perspectives relevant to the attack investigation, including four that helped identify suspect Frank James, 62.

The transit security camera system is one of the most comprehensive in the region, he said.

“And our camera failure rate is just about 1 percent,” he said during a Monday meeting. “Some additional outages that are scheduled because we have work, and we have to take down the comms system, but that 1 percent rate, as the NYPD emphasized, is at the very bottom — the lowest of any agency that they work with.”