Police say Rigoberto Lopez, 21, a Brooklyn resident, was arrested and charged with murder and attempted murder after a series of deadly stabbings on Train A over the weekend.
Police sources say Lopez was taken into custody on Saturday night in four separate attacks on the subway.
Police said the suspect was probably homeless and had been wanted for up to four knife attacks since Friday, which killed two homeless people on train A within hours and stabbed two others.
Sources told Eyewitness News that the suspect was being held at the 34th police station.
The crimes are just the latest in a series of violence on the city’s subway.
In Saturday’s violence, the authorities investigated four incidents in total, two of which were fatal, of stabbings and cuts that occurred on the subway A line trains in less than 24 hours between Friday at 11:20 am and Saturday at 1:28 am
Authorities say a man was found stabbed in the neck and torso several times aboard an A train at around 11:30 pm. On Friday night, he stopped at the Mott Avenue tube station in Far Rockaway, Queens.
The EMS arrived and declared the unidentified victim dead at the scene.
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Just two hours later, a 44-year-old woman was found stabbed in the body on an A train on West 207th Street and Broadway at around 1:30 am.
The EMS also arrived and declared the woman’s death there.
Authorities say the two victims appear to have been made homeless.
According to the police, two more stab wounds occurred at a subway station on line A on West 181st Street, where a 43- and 67-year-old man was stabbed.
Both survived and were taken to hospitals in the area where they are recovering.
One of the injured victims managed to give the police a description of the suspect.
While the police investigated the two separate murders, the NYPD promised on Saturday to send 500 additional police officers to patrol the system.
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With Saturday’s deaths only the most recent in an increasing number of violence, there was a call for reinforced efforts to protect the subways.
In a statement released on Saturday afternoon, NYC Transit acting president Sarah Feinberg asked the mayor to provide resources to help resolve the mental health crisis.
“More than a year ago, Governor Cuomo and the MTA Council called for an increased police presence in our system to keep our employees and the traveling public safe, and we are happy that the city and the NYPD agreed to add 500 additional police officers to the NYPD The terrible recent attacks demonstrate that these police officers are a major step forward, but more needs to be done: We continue to face an acute mental health crisis that has been aggravated by the pandemic and we need additional dedicated resources to meet this challenge. “
New York Police Commissioner Dermot Shea gave a news conference on Saturday afternoon about the recent series of attacks, promising to step up efforts to protect the system.
He said the NYPD will increase patrols in the New York City transit system with an additional 500 police officers.
“We will immediately begin a wave of police to patrol both above and below ground to ensure that everyone who travels in our daily transit system is not only safe, but just as important, they feel safe,” said Shea. “This increase will result in an additional 500 offices, which is a significant increase for our transit office staff, and they will be deployed immediately across New York City.”
Shea said the increase in commuting would include officers working both overtime and overtime.
“Yesterday … we transferred 75 plainclothes officers to uniforms, to increase the presence of uniforms on the subway. We also increased overtime, hundreds more officers are planned to be deployed from Monday on overtime. We also redistributed assignments. 40 officers from administrative assignments will patrol the subway platforms as of Monday, “said NYPD transit chief Cathy O’Reilly.
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