A lone madman is believed to fatally stabbed two homeless people and shot down two others in a 14-hour assault along the A-line, police said Saturday when they announced a massive manhunt for the bloodthirsty suspect.
The two murders took place at the other ends of the row, late Friday to Saturday – one in Inwood in Manhattan, the northernmost end, and another at the southernmost spot of the line, in the Rockaways in Queens – with both victims were found submerged in pools of blood, either in or under their subway seats.
Two surviving victims help police identify their attacker, tentatively described by officials as a lighter-skinned man who is only 5 feet tall and wearing a face mask.
“Three of these incidents appear to be related and the detective agency is investigating the possibility that all four could have been committed by one person,” Transit Chief Kathleen O’Reilly told reporters at a 2:00 PM press conference at NYPD’s headquarters. Lower Manhattan. .
“We will work tirelessly to bring the individual or individuals to justice,” she said.
Officials have released the following chronology:
– At 11:30 am Friday, a 67-year-old man was stabbed by a random assailant as he pushed his walker across the platform south at the 181st Street A train station in Washington Heights.
“I am going to kill you!” he told police his attacker was screaming, according to sources. He was stabbed in the right knee and left buttock; although he had to undergo surgery, he is expected to survive the attack.
It is tentatively believed that that attack is related to three consecutive attacks.
Twelve hours later, at 11:29 PM on Friday, a man was found stabbed to death, but still slumped in his seat on an A train at Mott Avenue station in Far Rockaway.
He sustained stab wounds to his neck and torso and was pronounced dead on the spot.
– About two hours later, at 1:15 am Saturday, a 44-year-old woman was found dead, again in a pool of blood, under her subway seat on an A train at 207th Street station in Inwood.
She had been stabbed all over her body.
-Shortly after, at 1:28 am Saturday, a 43-year-old man was randomly stabbed while sleeping in a stairwell at West 181st Street A train station.
He stumbled to a nearby bank on W. 181st Street, but collapsed before entering the vestibule, police said.
The victim is being treated in a regional hospital for four stab wounds to his back and is in a stable condition.
The 44-year-old woman was taken to New York Presbyterian-Allen Hospital, where she was pronounced dead, according to authorities.
It’s the worst stabbing on the subway since June 2006, when a homeless serial killer injured four people in a 13-hour rampage on trains in Harlem and Rockefeller Center. His victims all survived.
And it’s the worst mass violence against homeless people since 2019, when four homeless men were clubbed to death in their sleep one night in Manhattan’s Chinatown.
“When this happened in October 2019, we then said that unless the city and state work together” to create permanent, supported housing “there would be more violence,” said Joseph Loonam, housing campaign coordinator for Vocal-NY.
“And we are heartbroken but not surprised to learn that this has happened again.”
Shocked commuters at the A train’s Far Rockaway Mott Avenue station on Saturday called for increased security measures, suggesting more patrols and even metal detectors.
“It’s scary. It’s really scary. I’ve never felt safe on the subway, but I’ve always known to take them,” says Marissa Augustus, 17.
“I’m scared for my life,” she added. “Every time I get on the train, it’s empty,” said Revern Sharp, 45.
‘There are no police, so she gives that [the criminals] jurisdiction [do whatever] they want to do on the train. Smoke, drink, do whatever on the train, because they know no police are coming …
Maurice Moore, 33, said the subways just aren’t safe at night.
“The police should be here more often. If I go home late, there will be no police here, ”he said. “You see them between 8 a.m. and 5 p.m., but you don’t see them after that.”
The pandemic has resulted in fewer people – and police – at the station, commuters said.
“People jump over the turnstile, nobody no longer pays for it. If you have a MetroCard, you stupid … You need more police on the metro. “
Those who live and work at the 181st A train stop said that the homeless problem during the pandemic also sprang up like mushrooms – which is frightening too.
‘A lot of homeless people sleep there, like forty, twenty. It scares the children, the women. The police don’t bother them, ”said Abdul Mohammed, who works at Fort Washington Candy and Grocery at 181st St.
“It’s scary going there,” he continued. ‘People are sleeping, shinging in the subway. I am afraid of these people. “
Mayor de Blasio recently dismissed public concern from NYPD Commissioner Dermot Shea over a recent spate of subway attacks, including a strapping hanger being shoved on the rails.
“We had an incredible and total disruption in 2020. Our whole lives were turned upside down, a global pandemic, a perfect storm – and we’re working to overcome that,” de Blasio said earlier this month as he tried to explain away a doubling. the number of murders in the subway.
The mayor did not immediately respond to a request for comment on Friday and Saturday’s A train attacks.
Joseph Giacalone, a retired NYPD sergeant and assistant professor at the John Jay College of Criminal Justice, blamed City Hall for the wave, not New York’s Finest.
“Another failure of the mayor and those helping the homeless,” he said. “The transit system is not a shelter for the homeless and the role of the police in helping has diminished, to say the least.”