An emotionally disturbed homeless man with an extensive criminal history has been arrested for knifing a 51-year-old man in the back during an argument on a rush hour subway train rumbling through Manhattan, police said.
Justice Jackson, 30, was apprehended Friday afternoon after he was identified as the assailant in the D train attack that happened around 7:30 a.m. Thursday.
Cops charged Jackson with assault. He was hospitalized shortly after his arrest and his arraignment in Manhattan Criminal Court was pending, officials said.
Jackson was on the Brooklyn-bound train as it pulled into the W. Fourth St. station in Greenwich Village when he got into an argument with a 51-year-old commuter. During the fight, Jackson pulled a knife and jammed it into the man’s back, cops said.
Wounded, the victim stumbled off the train when the doors opened, while his attacker remained on the subway as it headed downtown.
The victim was conscious and talking to police when EMS rushed him to Bellevue Hospital, where he was listed in stable condition.
Cops managed to identify Jackson through surveillance cameras in the subway system. A Manhattan Warrants squad tracked him down and took him into custody.
Police said Jackson had been arrested about a dozen times before, and is believed to have a mental illness. Cops had been called at least 10 times to incidents in which Jackson was acting unstable, according a police source with knowledge of the case.
The early-morning attack was the fourth stabbing to happen in Manhattan since Monday, cops said. It was also the second to happen either in or right outside a Manhattan train station.
It came in the wake of an assault outside a Lower East Side subway station on Monday by an alleged assailant with an extensive criminal history.
Demitri Marshall, 32, was taken into custody around 5:30 p.m. that day, less than 12 hours after he attacked a 27-year-old man outside the East Broadway station near Canal and Essex Sts., authorities charged.
On Tuesday, a 41-year-old man was knifed in the back on W. 49th St. and Eighth Ave. in Hell’s Kitchen.
The still at-large assailant slashed the victim on the left side of his back around 8:50 p.m. Tuesday. EMS rushed the injured man to Bellevue Hospital in stable condition.
In a separate incident, a 22-year-old man was stabbed in the back near the corner of E. 53rd St. and First Ave. around 12:40 a.m. Wednesday. He was rushed to Cornell Hospital and was in stable condition.
No arrests have been made in that case.
As of Oct. 12, assaults in the city were down by less than 1% for the year to date, officials said. Cops have investigated 23,397 assaults this year, 126 fewer than at this time last year, according to NYPD statistics.
