Late night hosts cheer New Yorkers for catching the subway shooter, lament Biden wasn't hit by bird poop

published 14 April 2022

Police in New York on Wednesday arrested the suspected gunman who opened fire in a subway car Tuesday morning after filling it with noxious smoke, Trevor Noah said on Wednesday's Daily Show. "First of all, thank God nobody died in this attack," he said. And then he lauded New Yorkers for banding together to help, from treating injured victims to hunting down the suspect. "New York is the best worst city in the world," Noah explained.

On the other hand, New Yorkers maybe wouldn't have had to find the guy if the cameras in the subway station were working Tuesday morning, Noah said, not buying the MTA's insistence their malfunction was an anomaly. "Really? Out of 10,000 cameras in the subway system, the only three that weren't working are the ones that could have helped? Really? Oh, that's a crazy stroke of bad luck if it were true. Look, man, if you life in New York you know the truth: the subway cameras never work. None of them, ever. Yeah, that's why every station has those signs that say 'If you see something, say something.' Because they don't see anything."

"It does explain the new subway safety posters: 'If you see something, that's cool! We didn't!'" Stephen Colbert joked on The Late Show. Police discovered the identity of the alleged shooter, Frank James, by a credit card left at the scene plus the key to a U-Haul he had rented. "He also left a cheek swab, a filled-out tax return, and his SoulCycle emergency contact," he deadpanned. With the cameras out, "it's fortunate that James left behind plenty of evidence," he added. "That's what the MTA gets for hiring the same guy who did the cameras in Jeffrey' Epstein's cell."

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Peter has worked as a news and culture writer and editor at The Week since the site's launch in 2008. He covers politics, world affairs, religion and cultural currents. His journalism career began as a copy editor at a financial newswire and has included editorial positions at The New York Times Magazine, Facts on File, and Oregon State University.