Attacks in the subway continue: people are pushed onto rails, attacked with a knife

The Upper Manhattan man was the latest to be pushed onto the tracks in the New York City subway. According to him, the attack was unprovoked. New York Daily News.

Pushed onto the tracks

Raphael Wilson stood at Fulton Street Station in downtown Manhattan on Tuesday, February 2. He was wearing headphones, so he did not hear at all how the suspect crept up behind him and pushed him hard.

“I was just confused, this man did not say a word to me,” says 26-year-old Wilson. "He passed me, behind me, pestered other people ... I did not see how he approached me."

Wilson fell to the tracks a few feet from the platform and nearly snagged the deadly "third rail" (shorthand for the subway cable that supplies electricity).

Suspect Calvin, also Wilson, was charged with assault and taken to Bellevue Hospital for a medical examination.

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Police said the suspect has a history of mental illness and arrests for actions on the subway, including attacking a subway employee with a pipe.

Despite the same surnames, the victim and the attacker are not related and did not know each other. The victim escaped with fright and minor injuries, including a bruised foot and a broken little finger.

Other passengers helped him out onto the platform. On that day, he decided not to go home by metro and is still, according to him, afraid to use public transport.

“What if it was my mom? Or if it was someone's sister? Or someone's little kid riding the train to school? ” - Wilson is indignant.

Knife attack

Another attack in the metro took place the next day, February 3. 61-year-old man got his face cut with a knife in a subway in Manhattan, writes Daily Mail.

The victim was standing on the L train near her bag when, at about 8:27 am, another man boarded the train and kicked the bag. This provoked a verbal skirmish - at some point in the argument, the suspect pulled out a knife and cut the victim's left cheek.

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The suspect, described as a man in his 20s and 30s with black hair, got off the train at the 1st Avenue stop and fled the scene.

In recent months, the city has seen an increase in metro attacks, although passenger traffic has dropped by 70% due to the pandemic.