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POLICE SEARCHED FOR a woman who killed a man by pushing him in front of a subway train and released surveillance video today of her running away from the station.
Commuters, meanwhile, absorbed the news of the second fatal subway shove in the city this month.
“It’s just a really sad commentary on the world and on human beings, period,” said Howard Roth, who takes the subway daily. He said the deadly push was food for thought about subway safety, “but I guess the best thing is what they tell you — don’t stand near the edge, and keep your eyes open.”
The suspect in last night’s killing had been following the man closely on a Queens platform and mumbling to herself, witnesses told police. She got up from a nearby bench and shoved the man, who was standing with his back to her, as the train pulled into the platform. He was pinned under the train as it pulled to a stop, police said.
It did not appear the man noticed her before he was shoved onto the tracks, police said, adding that the condition of the man’s body was making it difficult to identify him. The woman was described as Hispanic, in her 20s, heavyset and about 5-foot-5, wearing a blue, white and gray ski jacket and Nike sneakers with gray on top and red on the bottom.
Unclear whether there was time for anyone to help
It was unclear whether the man and the woman knew each other. And it’s also unclear whether anyone tried to help the man up before he was struck — or whether there was enough time for anyone to do anything.
The surveillance video was taken at a nearby intersection. It shows a woman dashing from a crosswalk and down a pavement.
Asked about the episode at the station on Queens Boulevard in the Sunnyside neighborhood, Mayor Michael Bloomberg pointed to legal and policy changes that led to the release of many mentally ill people from psychiatric institutions from the 1960s through 1990s.
“The courts or the law have changed and said, no, you can’t do that unless they’re a danger to society; our laws protect you. That’s fair enough,” Bloomberg said on The John Gambling Show with Mayor Mike on WOR-AM.
On 3 December, 58-year-old Ki-Suck Han was pushed in front of a train in Times Square. Apparently no other passenger tried to help Han.
A photograph of him on the tracks a split second before he was killed was published on the front of the New York Post the next day, causing an uproar and debate over whether the photographer, who had been waiting for a train, should have tried to help him and whether the newspaper should have run the image.
A homeless man, 30-year-old Naeem Davis, was charged with murder in Han’s death and was ordered held without bail. He has pleaded not guilty and has said that Han was the aggressor and had attacked him first. The two men hadn’t met before.
A silent fear
Being pushed onto the train tracks is a silent fear for many of the commuters who ride the city’s subway a total of more than 5.2 million times on an average weekday, but deaths are rare.
Among the more high-profile cases was the January 1999 death of aspiring screenwriter Kendra Webdale, who was shoved by a former mental patient. After that, the state Legislature passed Kendra’s Law, which lets mental health authorities supervise patients who live outside institutions to make sure they are taking their medications and aren’t threats to safety.
Like many subway riders, Micah Siegel follows her own set of safety precautions during her daily commute: stand against a wall or pillar to keep someone from coming up behind you, watch out when navigating a crowded or narrow platform to avoid being knocked — even accidentally — onto the tracks.
“I do try to be aware of what’s around me and who’s around me, especially as a young woman,” Siegel, a 21-year-old college student, said as she waited at Pennsylvania Station on Friday.
So does Roth, who’s 60.
“It sounds a little wimpy if you’re like, ‘Who’s to push me?’ But it’s better to be safe than sorry,” he said.
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Good on ye! Someone has to do something and yet again it’s nurses. My mum was dying in ICU when we had the last nurses strike in 2019 and in spite of wanting the best for my mum I absolutely supported the nurses then and I will now. They were quite simply angels who helped us through the toughest of times and gave my dear mum what little dignity they could in her final days.
I went into limerick hospital on a Friday late evening with chest pains about two years, the A&E doctor was fairly sure it was muscular after a few tests. Saturday I felt fine and wanted to be discharged, the doctor said he needed the cardiac consultant to see me but he wouldn’t be in till Monday morning. 5pm Monday I was discharged. If there was a cardiac consultant on over the weekend, I could have been gone home Saturday instead off occupying a bed for an extra two nights. Bad management all around, support the nurses but everyone know it’s management is the issue
@Patrick O Connell: the lawyers kept you in for 2 nights
I wonder will they call off any industrial action when a few of their members get some middle management posts (which will then create more paperwork for the staff on the wards) like they did the last time they striked.
Typical contribution from this so called leader. Just how constructive is a call for strike ballot right now. Typical – all bluster and offers nothing in the way of constructive solution. But wait – a 10% salary increase will cure all her ills. Meanwhile the rest of can whistle dixie.
Threatening to go on strike so they can get more money.. Typical while patients of all ages are the ones who have to spend hours in A and E waiting to be seen. Dumped on trollies or chairs and after been seen left with a bill unless you have a medical card.
@Just Some Guy: if this is what you think it’s about, you need to put down the FFFG branded cool-aid .
@Just Some Guy: Read the articles. They’re as stressed over the overcrowding and understaffing as anyone else – unlike the patients and voters, they’re doing something to change this ridiculous scenario where every year hundreds of sick people are stuck in corridors. Ireland needs thousands more bed spaces And the staff to give them the healthcare they all deserve. Good for the staff who aren’t being fobbed off with annual excuses. They’re the very people who have been warning the people of Ireland that this is not only happening again but getting worse.
@Just Some Guy: Jesus, Varadkar, Martin, Donnelly will be delighted with you for that comment. Wonder why you didn’t blame Doctors ,Nurses, and the staff working themselves to the bone for being responsible for the chaos in the Health service. Bit ironic you failed to mention it was FFG policy the created this mess. Of course that would not suit your agenda…
@Donal Desmond: we have Dave the Ra shouting at anyone that will listen that our health system is terrible and yet his comrade Martina Anderson telling anyone who listen in the North that we have a Dar superior health service.
@Patrick O Connell: Perhaps it has escaped your attention that SF is not in government in the South. You conveniently fail to mention it is FFG who between them have governed this state since it’s foundation. Yet you blame the opposition for the catastrophic health service. As for the North there has been no Government in place since the DUP threw their rattler out of the pram.
@Just Some Guy: did you even read the article? It’s not about money it’s about staffing levels and overcrowding. Nothing will change anyway but at least they are highlighting it
@Just Some Guy: Nurse’s are not going on strike over pay they are going on strike over Patient safety no Nurse’s no beds and no support, have you worked a 12hr shift with no break???
If a disaster like the Stardust were to take place, what would happen? It doesn’t bear thinking about
This is worse than it has ever been….our daughter is a palliative nurse and is trying to treat cancer patients on a trolley in A and E…this is beyond disgusting….get Leo and the other ministers in and see for them selves what it is like…something needs to be done
@Linda Oreilly: Leo knows exactly what it’s like. He was originally a doctor in Connolly Hospital in Blanchardstown. Martin was previously a health minister. They know precisely what’s wrong but chose to do nothing about it because it doesn’t directly affect them.
@Eddie Feeney: they’ll just ride out this storm besides actually doing something ie actually do a bit of work. But they will give themselves a couple more Pay rises that you can be assured of.
Who knows, maybe these guys are playing the long con so, leave the country in such a state of disarray that when SF do take the hot seat things will be so bad people will just blame them then the current bunch will be back in power before they know it.
Toothless Union,
Fix the health system, end of, as the English say.
When it comes to nurses, it is difficult to be critical, even constructively, because everyone reverts to the emotional arguments to push their point and in so many ways we are so grateful to them.
That said, a lot of the working conditions incl trollies is largely down to nurses unions. They are the frontline. These problems did not develop overnight. Their unions threaten strikes over pay but claim it is all about ‘ patient safety’, yet when have we heard them threaten to go out on strike because of trollies, understaffed/ under equipped services which has been going on for years and only gets worse. 24hr healthcare i e. The likes of MRI scanners etc etc etc being made available. But probably as important, we have seen the decline in nurse morale, nurse numbers and conditions to a frightening level for all which begs the question as to what their unions are doing to protect the profession and patients. So why not use your political influence and threaten to withdraw your services in order to protect patients and profession as often as ye do for money, then we would all be better off. Personally I believe nurses deserve greater pay and conditions and an liveable ‘ Dublin housing allowance’
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