Man arrested after woman seen being shoved onto New York City subway tracks
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New York City police have arrested a man who they say threw a woman onto subway tracks in an unprovoked attack over the weekend, officials said Tuesday.
Theodore Ellis, 30, was arrested Tuesday on charges of first-degree assault and first-degree reckless endangerment, the police department said.
Surveillance video released by police captured the terrifying moments on elevated tracks at the Jackson Avenue Station in the Bronx about 4:40 p.m. Sunday.
The video showed a man in a white tank top, shorts, a backward baseball cap and a backpack appearing to grab the woman before he flings her onto the tracks.
The 52-year-old woman was taken to Lincoln Medical Center, where she was stable, police said.
The police department said a tip led to the arrest of Ellis, who lives in the Bronx.
It was not immediately clear whether Ellis had an attorney who could speak on his behalf. He was expected to be arraigned Tuesday night, a spokesman for the district attorney's office said.
Violence in New York's vast subway system has been a growing concern of residents and Mayor Eric Adams, who made public safety a focal point of his successful campaign last year.
A string of deadly or violent incidents on New York city rail lines in recent months have included:
Daniel Enriquez, 48, a Brooklyn resident and Goldman Sachs Group Inc. employee, was gunned down May 22 as he rode a Manhattan-bound Q train. Suspect Andrew Abdullah, 25, was arrested and did not immediately enter a plea, officials said.
Ten people were shot and 13 others were injured April 12 as a man threw two smoke canisters and opened fire aboard an N train as it approached the 36th Street Station in Brooklyn during the morning rush hour, authorities said. A day later, police arrested Frank R. James, 62, who has pleaded not guilty to federal terrorism charges.
Michelle Go, 40, was struck and killed by a subway train on Jan. 15 after, authorities said, a homeless man pushed her into tracks in Times Square.
The string of high-profile subway incidents belies overall travel safety, a transit advocate said Tuesday.
"Millions of people ride the subway every day, and it's overwhelmingly without incident," said Danny Pearlstein, the policy and communications director of the Riders Alliance, an advocacy group for New York City bus and train commuters.
"But that said, we're not at the point where everyone feels safe, welcomed and included in the subway."
Subway safety appears to be on the minds of many New York City residents as 85 percent of respondents to a Siena College poll, made public Tuesday, said they want more police officers on the rails.
Pollsters interviewed 1,000 New Yorkers over the phone from May 22 to Wednesday, with a margin of error of plus or minus 3.1 percentage points.
Public safety could be taking a toll on the mayor's popularity, with 74 percent of respondents saying Adams is doing a fair or poor job fighting crime, while just 21 percent gave him good or excellent marks.
