Terrifying surveillance footage shows a man chasing a woman down a New York City street after following her in and out of the subway and calling her "cute," authorities say.
According to the NYPD, the 48-year-old woman was on a northbound J train at the Cypress Hills station during a Tuesday morning rush hour earlier this month when the man stared at her and said, "Hey, you cute. I like the way you smell."
"The odd thing about the whole situation is the train was empty and he chose to sit next to me," she told NBC New York over the phone. "He started looking at me, I could feel his breathing on my neck literally, so I got up."
The victim moved to another subway car on the train and the man followed her, sitting directly in front of her and continuing to stare, according to police.
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"I told him in English, 'Why you following me? What’s your problem?' He was confused, he didn’t understand me, because he didn’t know English," said the victim, who did not wish to be identified.
The woman got off the train at the Jamaica-Parsons/Archer subway station and ran toward her office building for help — and the man followed. Video shows him chasing her down the street into a building. Once inside, police say they got into an altercation.
"He grabbed my bag, he pulled me, but I pulled him inside, and then he started punching me, hitting me," the woman said.
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The office security team came to the rescue and pried the man away from her, but the man got away and ran off.
The victim said she was on her way to work at the Social Security Administration building at the time of the incident. The woman told News 4 she's been working at home since the incident and is too traumatized to take the J train to work.
"Now what’s going to happen? He’s out there. He knows where I work. He knows what train station I take to go to work. I’m scared. What’s going to happen to me?" she asked.
Anyone with information is asked to call Crime Stoppers at 1-800-577-TIPS.
New York City has launched a number of security initiatives in recent weeks designed to enhance public perception of subway safety in light of several high-profile incidents, homicides included. On Thursday, Mayor Eric Adams announced plans to test a gun detector program in the transit system. Earlier this week, 800 NYPD officers flooded stations across the city in a bid to curb fare-beating, which officials say leads to escalating crimes.
Freshly reimplemented bag checks, meanwhile, are ongoing with the assistance of the National Guard.
