A beggar injured a two-year-old boy on the New York City subway on Saturday, the latest violent incident plaguing the public transport system.
The attack took place on Saturday afternoon, around 3 pm, on a C train north in Manhattan.
The New York Post reports that the train was on West 116th Street and Douglas Boulevard when the homeless woman approached a mother and her son, who were sitting on the train, to ask for money.
When the beggar got too close, the mother asked, ‘Can you please stay 2 meters away?’
A homeless man injured a two-year-old boy on the New York City subway on Saturday, the latest violent incident plaguing the public transport system
The beggar, who was not identified, did not comply with the request and stepped on the woman’s left foot.
‘Why did you step on me?’ the mother asked, before the beggar started punching wildly, hitting the child at least once.
The child had visible lesions on his face and ear.
The attack ended only when a witness removed the suspect from the mother and child.
An ambulance transported the boy to Mount Sinai-Saint Luke’s and he was later released.
The suspect, however, managed to escape when the train arrived at the next station. She is described as being in her 40s, burly with a tattoo on her neck and a haircut. She was wearing a gray hooded sweatshirt, faded jeans, boots and a white mask.
PIX11 reports that this was not the only subway attack in Harlem over the weekend.
On Sunday, a 32-year-old man was attacked on a Northbound Train 2, near 110th Street and the Lenox stop.
There has been a sharp increase in subway violence in the last month in New York
The man suffered minor lacerations in the extremities. The attack suspect, a man in dark clothes, also escaped from prison.
The attacks came amid an increase in subway violence in recent weeks in New York City.
A 21-year-old murderer was accused of killing two homeless people on train A in early February and is being held without bail.
Rigoberto Lopez is also charged with attempted murder after cutting two other people during his deadly orgy.
Rigoberto Lopez, 21, is accused of murdering two homeless people and cutting two others
Police presence on the subway is growing, but the MTA calls for more support
In the photo: a train on line C of the subway, which is the line where Saturday’s attack took place
Transit workers are calling for the 24-hour metro to resume, which was suspended in May to allow stations to be cleaned up due to the coronavirus pandemic.
Officials claim that the night hours when the subway is not running have become dangerous.
The MTA says that five subway workers were attacked during the night, when the trains are off.
Since August, however, there have been nearly 300 reports of harassment against subway workers.
Currently, two more hours are being added to the operation of the system, although two hours will remain without service from 2 am to 4 pm every night for cleaning.
The MTA recently requested that 1,500 more police officers be deployed on the NYPD subway system.
Instead, the NYPD sent less than half that on Tuesday, adding 644 police officers to subway stations.
The public transport system has suffered a lot since the beginning of the pandemic, with the number of passengers falling by about 90%, as people work from home more often.