An NYC Subway Attack, As Witnessed

On Saturday, October 12th, 2024, in NYC, I was taking the subway train home from work, at approximately 945 PM, when the following occured:

The train was set to go express from 86th St., where I boarded, to 125th St. It was then to move into the Bronx stopping at all stops. Somewhere between 86th and 125th, while underground, it stopped.

After a minute or so, someone came onto the intercom and announced that on the train in front of our's a person had been in between train cars and had fallen off. That person was now on the track in front of our train.

"Uhhh"s went up from some of the passengers. A woman said to someone else "We were going to take the bus."* A man said "I was going to wait until I got home.." He then pulled a bottle of liquor out of his bag and took a swig, before putting it back.

I was standing by a door, and to my side sat a young man, a little overweight and soft of body, of Latin mix perhaps, looking at his phone. The seat beside his was empty and the seat beside that one was occupied by a larger black man with straightened hair and cotton garden gloves on.

The larger man said to the younger man "Touch me again and I'm going to bust your face. Break your glasses. Touch me again".

I looked to see if the young man was in any way touching the other man and saw there was a considerable space between the two. The young man had not been moving around and just kept looking at his phone, not responding to the larger man.

About a minute past and then the larger man said "I told you if you touched me again....." and stood up and punched the young man in the face. The young man bent over sideways and laid on the seat beside his, pulling his arms and hands over the back of his head as the larger man rained down blows.

Everyone but me had gotten up at this point and moved to the other side of the car.

(Here I must remind the reader that this is NYC. Fights and other such drama are a regular thing, and you never know if there is a backstory or history between the people. In this case though, it struck me as pretty likely that the two men did not know each other.)

At that point, after maybe 4 blows to the young man's arms covering the back of his head, the attacker stopped, got up and said "Where's my hat?" I was standing right there, and he looked like he was perhaps considering punching me, but he didn't. Instead he walked off and left the car.

At this point, we were all still stopped in place underground.

To be as short as possible, half the young man's glasses, minus the glass, were lying on the seat, along with a drop or two of blood. The young man's lip was busted and bleeding as well.

I asked the young man did any teeth get chipped or knocked out and he felt them and said no. I said

"That's good." I then asked him if he had work the next day and he said "I'm 16".

Others (who were now coming back down to that side of the car) said "Ohh" and "You're sixteen?"

Then there was lots of discussion about where the attacker had moved off to (in some other car) and how they needed to tell the police what happened, etc.

The young man, who had remained calm the whole time and was saying little, told me that if he told the cops it would take a long time, as if he was considering not immediately reporting it.

He was able to get through to his father and his father was going to meet him at 125th. The train soon began to move, with the announcer saying the man that had been on the tracks was alive.

When the train doors opened at 125th some witnesses got out, but as I looked around on the platform from the car I never saw the young man again. I also saw no police and did not see the attacker.

I stayed on the train, and continued on my way.

The next day I searched briefly on the internet to see if there was any news report about the incident, but found nothing.

* Quotes are not necessarily verbatim.

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Barry, this is a very well done piece of reporting, as good as anything I or Chris Pfouts or MacYoung ever wrote.

I saw this behavior on the bus a week ago as a tall black man of 40 or so stood and began objecting to imagined slights by the driver, a 30 year old black, who he claimed was speaking to him and looking at him through his mirror with "disrespect." The driver ignored him, safe in his cage, until the stop came. When the driver stopped, the man threatened him for not stopping correctly promising, "Ta comeback on yo ass!"

I have noted an increase in such threats on foot, by bus and by train. The violent speakers are all of the same demographic. I have no desire to expand on that.

What i have noted is a high level of ambient hostility that has continued to grow in the culture, the whole culture, from senators down to wolfing welfare slugs.

I know people, in fact most of the people i know, have been sucked into ambient hostility. The men who drive me around are more and more angry at the other drivers, who are even more angrily acting out than my driver. Last night I went to coach karate students in boxing. Only two boys were there. Yet, upstairs from the basement school, where there was once a dance studio and a fencing school and an accounting firm, there are three mental health clinics!

Next door to our main entrance, where there was once a nice used book store, is now a weed shop.

People are quietly losing their minds and their memories and their ability to read a book right in front of my eyes. Dozens of people that i care deeply about, long time friends, fellow fighters HATE people who they have never met, HATE them by name obsessively, violently. How can you hate someone you do not know? The wonderthug enthusiasm of those two 12 year old boys last night was a relief compared to the seething discontent, confusion, distraction i observe in adults every day.

Was Cornrow insane?

Is he just lonely and unknown, perpetually overlooked and underlooked by strangers mesmerized by their phones, strangers who might once have taken note of his menace with a shuffle of fear, a dropping of eyes, a declaration that he was welcome to their seat?

Sixteen, probably took less of a beating than if he would have fought. He was wise enough to ignore the fellow and shell up and to not call in the goons, knowing what pigs are. Less than 1 in 100 men his age, far less, probably 1 in 1,000, are willing to engage in any activity that would have given him an option better than a beatdown. At least he had a father to call, where most young men of other murkan bloodlines do not.

Barry, thank you for this.

2008 began the Knockout Game, recreational group ambushes of atomized souls.

2016 began the HATE Game with insane persons attacking anybody without cause, simply to express their hate for the world that ate their soul.

2020, increased insanity by X4, at least. Insanity supported by media mind sodomy and massive legal and decriminal drug augmentation has placed many of us in the well of despair, far inward and away from everyone, everywhere.

Please keep reporting.

j