Commuters are frightened by subway attack but say, ‘You can’t live in fear.’

It was about 11:40 a.m. when a number of cellphones on a Brooklyn-bound F practice wailed with an emergency alert on Tuesday morning, warning New Yorkers to avoid the realm the place a person had shot 10 folks within the subway within the Sundown Park neighborhood hours earlier. Two males handed the telephone to one another, questioning methods to get to their cease. Elsewhere on the sparsely crammed automobile, folks learn books, listened to music, watched movies or texted on their telephones.

Many commuters late Tuesday morning using the trains by way of Brooklyn and Manhattan stated they’d no alternative however to take the subway; it’s their lifeline to get to work, college, run errands or see associates.

Marjorie Michelle, 50, lives in Brooklyn and takes the subway each day to her job as a nurse technician. “It’s very scary,” she stated whereas navigating the Atlantic Avenue-Barclays Middle station with grocery baggage in tow. “However we nonetheless acquired to outlive and reside and go the place you bought to go. You’ll be able to’t reside in concern.”

Lucy Gonzalez was amongst these heading into work from East Harlem to the Soho space of Manhattan. Typically she will get out as late as 11 p.m. “Currently, I’ve been asking as a substitute of leaving so late, to depart early as a result of at nighttime it may be so harmful,” Ms. Gonzalez, 21, stated.

Some passengers realized of the capturing by way of subway bulletins, messages from family and friends, and information alerts, whereas others didn’t find out about it in any respect. A number of strains have been shut down or working with delays, complicating folks’s commutes. On the Atlantic-Avenue Barclays cease in Brooklyn, a number of M.T.A. staff stood by entrances to the subway, fielding questions from passengers about different routes. Bulletins blared about suspended service on the D, N and R trains.

Ellen Silbermann, 71, has lived in New York all her life and might bear in mind the high-crime period of the Seventies. However the risks really feel totally different now. “It wasn’t this random,” Ms. Silbermann stated of the 70s. “That is new.”

She added: “What occurred right this moment was like somebody plotting one thing out of a foul film. It’s very totally different. It’s kind of apocalyptic.”

Vuyisile Beschta, 27, was already on the practice heading to downtown Manhattan to get a haircut when his girlfriend messaged him concerning the capturing, in any other case, he stated, he would have thought twice about getting on the practice. “It’s so loopy — issues which might be taking place now are making folks not wish to do one thing,” Mr. Beschta stated, including he was particularly unnerved by the shooter being described as sporting a employee’s vest.

Tiffany Shiew was at Broadway-Lafayette station in Manhattan heading into Brooklyn. “It’s a little bit fearful, I’m headed towards the scene,” she stated, as she was making an attempt to determine her route.

A number of New Yorkers stated that whereas they all the time exercised warning when using the subway, the spate of crimes recently, together with accounts of individuals being pushed onto the tracks and different assaults, have put them on edge.

Regardless of the notion of rising crime, town stays far safer than in earlier years. Even with latest will increase, charges of shootings, felony assaults and general main crimes are much like or beneath the degrees of the late 2000s and early 2010s.

Brian Astacio, who like many riders was commuting to work on Tuesday morning, stated having extra law enforcement officials within the subway stations would make him really feel extra protected.

“All we will do is preserve hoping issues will settle down a bit,” he stated, including, “We actually have to get issues beneath management, particularly with gun violence.”