Police are investigating their second Manhattan subway track shove in barely 12 hours -- this one involving a 36-year-old rider who was punched and pushed to the trackbed after denying a panhandler cash, authorities say.
The victim was waiting for a downtown B/D train on the southbound platform in the station at Avenue of the Americas and West 42nd Street shortly before 7 p.m. Wednesday when a stranger approached him and begged for money, police say.
When the victim refused, the stranger punched him multiple times in the face and then pushed him to the southbound tracks before fleeing the station. The rider suffered minor injuries to his knee and hands but wasn't hit by a train.
The suspect, a 23-year-old man, was arrested Thursday on charges of attempted murder and reckless endangerment, police said.
The Wednesday attack was the first of two in little more than 12 hours in the heart of Manhattan. On Thursday morning, an emotionally disturbed stranger shoved a woman to the subway tracks at the Union Square station as a train approached. She fell in between two train tracks and narrowly missed being hit by the subway.
The suspect in that case was arrested a short time later.
