A man accused of slashing two people in back-to-back Christmas Eve attacks at Grand Central Station — cutting one victim in the wrist so deeply a tourniquet needed to be applied — screamed “F— these people!” at the start of his rampage, prosecutors say.
Jason Sargeant was ordered held on $150,000 bail during a brief arraignment proceeding in Manhattan Criminal Court Wednesday night.
Witnesses heard Sargeant, 28, scream “F— these people’ before the 10:10 p.m. attacks, which began when he pulled the emergency brake on an uptown No. 5 train pulling into the Grand Central-42nd St. subway station, police and MTA officials said.
As soon as he stepped off the train, he slashed a 42-year-old man in the left wrist without warning, cops said.
Manhattan Assistant District Attorney Anjali Puri said the victim “was bleeding profusely on scene” and “lost a significant amount of blood.”
First responders applied a tourniquet before rushing him to Bellevue Hospital, where he remained hospitalized as of Wednesday evening with “possible nerve damage,” Puri said.
Straphangers “appeared to be afraid” of Sargeant and steered clear of him as he fled up a flight of stairs, Puri added.
When he reached the mezzanine level and exited a turnstile, he lunged at a 26-year-old woman with his knife, punching her in the face and cutting her neck and throat, prosecutors said.
She suffered minor injuries and was also taken to Bellevue Hospital.
MTA police apprehended Sargeant in the station and found a bloody knife in the front left pocket of his jacket, authorities say.
As she asked for bail, Puri said Sargeant has a “minimal criminal history” in New York City but the repeat attacks were “incredibly serious.”
“(Sargeant), unprovoked, attacked two victims inside Grand Central Station with a knife on Christmas Eve,” Puri said, adding that both attacks were caught on video.
Sargeant was charged with multiple counts of assault. He lives in Flatbush, Brooklyn, according to cops.
An email to the Legal Aid Society, who represented Sargeant at his arraignment, wasn’t immediately returned.
Speaking to reporters in Harlem before serving Christmas meals at the National Action Network’s headquarters Wednesday, Mayor Adams praised law enforcement for catching the suspect, whom he said suffered from a history of mental illness.
“We made the apprehension. We did our job. We had the omnipresence of uniformed officers there. But this appears to be a person who had a mental health history in the past,” the mayor said. “This clearly is a person that needs help.”
Adams said addressing random acts of violence will be a priority for his administration to press in Albany this year.
“As we go back to Albany, we need to look at involuntary removals. As we go back to Albany, we need to look at more long-term housing beds,” he said, referring to policy proposals he has floated for addressing New York’s mental health crisis.
NYPD data shows crime in the subway system is up significantly compared with before the COVID-19 pandemic, with a 20% jump in violent crime underground in 2023 compared with 2019.
