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Video: Enraged Subway Riders Assault Conductor After 'A' Train Goes Express
By
Jake Offenhartz
Published Aug 14, 2018
Modified Aug 14, 2018
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By
Jake Offenhartz
Published Aug 14, 2018
Modified Aug 14, 2018
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Furious subway riders brutally assaulted an MTA conductor in Brooklyn over the weekend, after the trio missed their stop because the train was running express, police said.
The 62-year-old victim was operating the A train at 4:40 a.m. on Saturday morning, when the three individuals pounced on him at the Grant Avenue stop in East New York, according to an NYPD spokesperson. Video of the incident first shared on LiveLeak shows the fuming straphangers berating the conductor, and attempting to pull him from the cabin by his arm. The suspects also punched the victim in the face and threw beer cans at him, police said.
All three individuals fled the station on foot, and no arrests have been made thus far. Assaulting a transit worker is a Class D felony punishable by up to seven years in prison.
Attacks on MTA employees are on the rise in recent months, according to leaders of the Transit Workers Union Local 100, and may be related to widespread frustration at deteriorating service. “It’s happening more because there are so many delays and the riders take it out on who’s in front of them,” Crystal Young, chair of the union's conductor and tower division, told the Post in June. This Spring, there were at least six separate assaults on subway workers over a ten-day period.
"There seems to be a spike going on here—we don't have the full stats right now, but [the assaults] do seem to be on the upswing," TWU spokesperson Pete Donahue told Gothamist. The union has added photos of the most recent suspects to their "Most Wanted" flyers, which they are passing out at the Grant Avenue station.
On Monday, the conductor met with union leaders, reportedly telling them, "Once you start identifying these people, and they see they won’t be anonymous anymore, maybe it will cut down on the number of them being so brazen."
The NYPD, which released a short clip of the video, says they looking for two individuals, describing one as a male who was last seen wearing a red shirt and gray pants and the other as a female wearing glasses and a gray dress.
Anyone with information in regards to this incident is asked to call the NYPD's Crime Stoppers Hotline at 1-800-577-TIPS (8477) or for Spanish, 1-888-57-PISTA (74782). The public can also submit their tips by logging onto the Crime stoppers website at WWW.NYPDCRIMESTOPPERS.COM or by texting their tips to 274637 (CRIMES) then enter TIP577. All calls are strictly confide
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Jake Offenhartz
Jake Offenhartz is a former Gothamist reporter.
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Gothamist is funded by sponsors and member donations
Gothamist is funded by sponsors and member donations
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