New York, NY – A mumbling woman pushed a man to his death in front of a subway train on Thursday night, the second time this month someone has been killed in such nightmarish fashion, police said.
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The man, who wasn’t immediately identified, was standing on the elevated platform of a 7 train in Queens at about 8 p.m. when he was shoved by the woman, who witnesses said had been following him closely and mumbling to herself, New York Police Department chief spokesman Paul Browne said. It didn’t appear the man noticed her before he was shoved onto the tracks, police said.
The woman fled, and police were searching for her. She 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.
It was unclear if the man and the woman knew each other or if anyone tried to help the man up before he was struck by the train and killed.
On Dec. 3, 58-year-old Ki-Suck Han was shoved in front of a train in Times Square. 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. Apparently no one else tried to help up Han, either.
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.
Service was suspended Thursday night on the 7 train line, which connects Manhattan and Queens, and the Metropolitan Transportation Authority was using buses to shuttle riders while police investigated.
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.
Very sad.
Maybe it’s time to ban subways. Clearly they kill.
It always amazes me how many people are standing near the edge of the platform when a train is pulling in.
Train tracks are very scary. Y don’t they do like in the airports. Build a barrier at the edge with doors that open in line with the train doors. Safest!
At the trains in many airports, the platform, is closed. The door opens when the train arrives.
Maybe its time rebuild all platforms with this type of closures.
It is time to look in to regulating subway use. There has to be some green and efficient alternative lawmakers can propose to move us away from the subway system. It is getting out of hand.
Someday, I suppose we will have to put those doors along the platforms. Train pull up so their doors align with the doors of the barrier, then both open.
#1 you read my mind.
#6 & #8 : They 217;re called  220;Platform Screen Doors 221; or a.k.a.  220;PSD 221;. Look that up in Wikipedia. It 217;s about time that the MTA retrofit PSDs on all of its NYC subway system. I don 217;t think this problem will go away, but will increase until PSDs are installed.
The also improve heating and air conditioning, and reduce the problem of track fires caused by people tossing stuff onto the lines.
Supposedly the new Second Avenue line will have the platform screen doors, but it’s not reasonable to think the MTA will be able to come up with the hundreds of millions of dollars it would take to install these doors in the existing system. Other than standing as far back from the edge as possible I don’t see an easy solution to this rising horrific behavior. (Remember, the train does not get there any faster with you hanging over the edge looking for the light in the tunnel).
NYC subway was not designed from ground up to support “platform screen doors.” Not all stations are the same and trains have varying cart dimensions and sizes. It would be cost prohibitive for MTA to attempt such a system on world’s largest subway system especially when MTA is already struggling with providing basic services while they’re increasing rider cost annually.
Safety is nice to have but who pays for it all?