A subway cleaner stumbled upon a startling find when he discovered a high-powered rifle hidden in a trash can on a Lower Manhattan platform, police sources told The New York Post on Saturday.
The long-barreled firearm was uncovered around 3:15 p.m. on Friday at the Cortlandt Street Station on the R subway line, located just two blocks from the 9/11 Memorial and Museum.
According to an NYPD spokesperson, “It was an AM-15.” Police sources noted that the weapon was unloaded and lacked a magazine. The AM-15, manufactured by Anderson Manufacturing, is a semi-automatic AR-style rifle that is often associated with mass shootings.
The unsettling discovery comes as a pilot program testing AI-powered weapons scanners in select New York City subway stations this summer revealed that no passengers with firearms were detected.
The scanners conducted nearly 3,000 searches, resulting in more than 118 false positives and the identification of 12 knives. Police did not specify whether the knives were illegal weapons or permissible tools, such as pocket knives, that are allowed in the transit system.
