NYPD Hunting for Suspect After 3 Brutal Subway Attacks in 17-Minute Span
Three women were attacked Sunday afternoon within about 17 minutes of one another while riding the New York City subway system, and police are working on the assumption that the attacks were related.
According to the New York Post, the first attack occurred around 4:20 Sunday and involved two women at the station at 86th Street and Lexington Avenue.
A Metropolitan Transportation Authority worker there told the Post that at least one of the victims did not know her attacker.
“The girl came up to my booth to call the cops,” the worker said. “She was crying. She didn’t know the person. She said the person just walked up to her and slashed her for no reason. Then I got the police here.”
It was not immediately clear which of the two women whose legs were slashed in that attack, who according to the Post were 19 and 48, the MTA worker meant.
A second attack took place at the Brooklyn Bridge / City Hall station that required a tourniquet for the 28-year-old victim’s leg. That woman was “rushed to Bellevue Hospital” but her injuries were not considered life-threatening, the Post reported.
The similarity of the attacks and their locations in Manhattan have led police to assume a connection between them, WABC-TV reported.
Nicholas Altobelli, who was working near the site of the first attack when it occurred, told the outlet that it reminded him of a similar incident in 2020.
“It’s just clear that if this happened two years ago and we’re still dealing with this now, I mean, that’s a really, really vicious thing to happen, and something we’ve really got to clean up,” he said.
(WABC did not explain the apparent discrepancy between its reporting of the older incident as having occurred in February 2020 and Altobelli’s description of it having been only “two years ago.”)
Sazan Thapa, who also works in the area, suggested that a stronger police presence was needed on the subways.
“The 4/5/6 stations, I think they need to be a little careful about putting people around, putting cops around,” Thapa said. “It’s still scary for everybody taking the train at this station. I think they need to do a better job around this area.”
The Post noted that arrests for possession of an illegal knife in the subway system were up by 126 percent over the past four years.
Police on Monday released surveillance video of the man they wanted to question regarding the attacks.
His description, as summarized by WABC-TV, included: “short black hair, brown eyes, 5’8” in height, and approximately 220 lbs. He was last seen wearing a white shirt, blue pants, black sneakers, and a black baseball cap with the letter “B” in red on the front.”
WABC-TV’s summary inexplicably omitted the fact that video of the suspect clearly showed him to be a black male.
Anyone in possession of useful information regarding the crimes was encouraged to call NYPD’s Crime Stoppers Hotline at 1-800-577-TIPS (8477).
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