Mass Stampede Erupts At New York's Penn Station After Police Taser Suspect During Arrest

New York, NY, 14 April, 2017 - A Taser incident at New York's Penn Station caused mass panic Friday evening as people were spooked by a noise some feared was gunshot and ran for the exits.

Cops confronted a man and subdued him with a stun gun around 6:30 p.m., sparking a stampede of frightened travelers who feared that a shooting had taken place.

The aftereffects of an earlier disabled New Jersey Transit train, which found hundreds of people trapped in a tunnel mid-afternoon, plus Easter weekend travelers, added to the chaos.

"At about 6:30 tonight we received numerous calls of shots fired in and around Penn Station," NYPD Chief of Manhattan South Bill Morris said in an evening news conference on 34th Street near Seventh Avenue.

Morris confirmed that the noise had come from the deployment of a Taser by Amtrak Police.

"There were no actual shots fired."

The mass exodus resulted in some 16 people suffering non-life-threatening injuries, FDNY Deputy Chief Tom Currao said.

The FDNY and emergency medical personnel were already on the scene because of the earlier situation with the disabled train, Currao said.

"No shots were fired at Penn Station this evening.

FDNY is on scene treating injuries that were sustained during panic," Mayor Bill de Blasio tweeted.