Police were searching Sunday for a gunman after a dispute at the busy Seventh Avenue station ended in a fatal shooting.
NEW YORK CITY, NY — A man was fatally shot Saturday afternoon at a Midtown Manhattan subway station after a dispute involving several men, police said, prompting a search for the gunman and disrupting train service through one of the city’s busiest areas.
The shooting happened at about 12:21 p.m. on the northbound E train platform at the Seventh Avenue-53rd Street station, according to police. The victim, described by authorities as a man in his 30s, was shot once in the chest. Emergency medical workers took him to Bellevue Hospital, where he was pronounced dead. His name had not been publicly released as of early Sunday.
Police said the confrontation began as a dispute on the platform. Preliminary accounts differed on exactly where the gunfire occurred. Police initially said the argument spilled onto a train that had entered the station and then returned to the platform, while later information from the NYPD described the victim being shot on the northbound E platform. Authorities said the shooting did not appear to be a random attack, but investigators had not publicly disclosed a motive or said whether the victim and gunman knew each other.
The suspected gunman fled the station on foot and was last seen heading north on Seventh Avenue, police said. The NYPD released surveillance images of a person sought in connection with the killing. Police described him as wearing a red tracksuit, a black vest and a black face covering and carrying a backpack. No arrest had been announced by early Sunday.
The station serves the B, D and E subway lines near West 53rd Street, within walking distance of Carnegie Hall and several Broadway theaters. The shooting brought a large emergency response to the station during the busy Saturday afternoon period. Subway service was temporarily rerouted or bypassed the station while officers investigated and collected evidence.
Michael Kemper, the Metropolitan Transportation Authority’s chief security officer, said the agency worked with the NYPD from the first minutes of the investigation, including helping investigators retrieve video from cameras on platforms and inside train cars. Kemper said the incident apparently grew from a dispute and noted that no one outside the confrontation was reported injured.
Witness accounts described passengers scrambling after hearing gunfire. One tourist told NBC New York that her daughter warned others that there was a shooter after seeing a man with a weapon. Other witnesses described passengers running from the area as the shooting unfolded. Police had not publicly confirmed every detail in the witness accounts as of Sunday.
The killing came as New York City has reported broad declines in shootings and homicides. The NYPD said earlier in October that the city recorded 489 shooting incidents and 203 murders during the first nine months of 2026, the lowest totals for those periods in department records. Deadly violence in the subway remains relatively uncommon compared with the millions of trips made across the transit system, though serious attacks can heighten concerns about safety among riders.
Detectives continued searching Sunday for the person wanted in the shooting. Police had not announced an arrest, identified the victim or released additional information about what led to the dispute. The investigation remained ongoing.
Author note: Last updated October 18, 2026.