Man Is Fatally Shot Aboard a Subway Train in Brooklyn

A 45-year-old man was fatally shot on a subway train in Brooklyn on Sunday evening, the police said, in a violent episode that compounded what has already been a difficult month for New York’s subway system.

The victim, Richard Henderson, was just a few stops from his home in Crown Heights shortly after 8 p.m. on Sunday when he was shot in the back and shoulder aboard a Manhattan-bound No. 3 train at the Franklin Avenue station.

The police said it was not yet known whether Mr. Henderson had any connection to the gunman. No arrests have been made in the case.

The police responded to a 911 call reporting the shooting at about 8:15 p.m. on Sunday. Mr. Henderson was transported to a nearby hospital, where he was pronounced dead.

It was the latest difficult episode for New York’s subway system, in many ways the backbone of the city, which has struggled in the early going of 2024.

Already this year, there have been two train derailments, one of which injured 26 people and led to significant service disruptions for days. And last week, a teenage boy was killed in what authorities said was a “subway surfing” incident, in which thrill-seekers ride atop cars. It was the second such death in two months.

A spokesman for the Metropolitan Transportation Authority did not immediately respond to a request for comment on Sunday’s killing.

Shootings on subway trains are rare and make up a fraction of the city’s overall gun crime. In November, two people were shot on a moving subway car in the Bedford-Stuyvesant neighborhood of Brooklyn. They sustained minor injuries.

Overall, shootings in the city, which spiked during the height of the pandemic, have come down. In 2023, about 1,100 people were shot, roughly 400 fewer than in the previous year.