Police are looking for a man they say randomly attacked subway riders at a Brooklyn stop over the weekend, slapping one of them -- and slashing a 36-year-old good Samaritan who tried to intervene, authorities say.
According to the NYPD, the man was harassing riders for no known reason at the Bedford-Avenue stop in Williamsburg shortly before 10:30 p.m. Sunday. He slapped one rider in the face, then turned on the 36-year-old, slashing him across the face with some sort of cutting instrument before running away, authorities say.
The good Samaritan was taken to a hospital and is expected to be OK, and no other injuries were reported. Police released a surveillance image of the suspect and asked anyone with information to call Crime Stoppers at 1-800-577-TIPS.
The attack was at least the third unprovoked incident inside the NYC subway system just over the past week. In an attack during the morning of Aug. 22, police said that a man pushed a 68-year-old woman down a staircase at the Union Turnpike-Kew Gardens subway station in Queens.
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A victim from a different violent incident took to social media to warn others to remain vigilant while on the train.
"Could I have done something, did I deserve it? Like what did I do to deserve this? I kept asking myself over and over and over," said Vesly Beato, still traumatized days after she was involved in a bizarre but scary attack on the subway.
Beato was sitting next to her 15-year-old cousin as they were heading uptown on the 1 train Friday afternoon. As it pulled into the 66th Street station, things suddenly changed for the worse, as she was hit.
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"The train doors open and I hear the slap. That's when I look up and everyone is looking at me. It feels like everything stopped at that moment," she said. "I look over to my cousin, she’s crying. And then I hear, 'She's bleeding.'"
Beato was in shock, she didn't even realize that a complete stranger had just slapped her across the face before running off the train, never even making eye contact or saying a word.
The slap left a gash across her nose, and required a trip to the hospital. She put out a video on TikTok about her experience, which has not been viewed more than a million times.
"I've been here my entire life and never in a million years did I think I would be one of those people to get f-----g assaulted on a damn train," she says in the video.
Investigators said that since January, there have been five murders, eight rapes, 347 assaults and 365 robberies in the city's subway and transit system.
"I don’t understand what was the point and these are senseless attacks that don’t make any sense. And if you can start with such a simple attack, what else are you going to do?" asked Beato.
