New York City subway shooting attack timeline

Frank R. James, the 62-year-old man accused of popping a smoke canister in a crowded New York City subway car before opening fire during the Tuesday morning rush hour, is in police custody after a good Samaritan spotted him walking down a Manhattan sidewalk in broad daylight Wednesday.

In 30 hours between the attack and his arrest, investigators obtained and distributed images of the suspect in the hope that the public could help catch him. They searched a storage unit and apartment linked to him in Philadelphia, which he had spoken of in numerous videos posted to a now-disabled YouTube channel. And he may have taunted investigators by calling in the tip line to report himself, according to law enforcement sources, even as a security camera technician spotted him in the East Village and turned him in. 

MONDAY APRIL 11
Police say James rented a U-Haul van in Philadelphia.
He had reserved it and prepaid on April 6, according to a federal criminal complaint, using his Wisconsin driver’s license, as a well as a phone number linked to bank cards in his name that investigators would later find at the scene of the shooting.
Then he drove to New York City.