A 55-year-old man was kicked onto the subway tracks at Jay St-MetroTech station in downtown Brooklyn during a drunken argument with another straphanger, police said Friday.
The intoxicated victim was waiting for a train on the Manhattan-bound R line at the Jay St. station near Willoughby St. at 11:35 p.m. Thursday when he got into an argument with another man.
During the heated back and forth, the other man kicked the victim in the upper body twice, knocking him onto the tracks, witnesses told police.
The victim hit his head on the roadbed, but other commuters managed to pull him back onto the platform before a train could enter the station.
The attacker, described as a man in his 40s wearing a black jacket and a grey hoodie, ran off. No arrests have been made.
Cops described an incident as a “dispute that escalated” before the victim was knocked onto the tracks.
EMS rushed the victim to New York-Presbyterian Brooklyn Methodist Hospital, where he was treated for cuts and scrapes to his head and bruises to his back.
This is the third time this year that a commuter was knocked onto the subway tracks along the R line in Brooklyn, cops said. The other two attacks were considered random encounters, according to police sources.
On the morning of Feb. 14, a 51-year-old woman was shoved onto the tracks during a random attack at the R station at 53rd St. near Fourth Ave. in Sunset Park, about five miles from the Jay St. station.
A 43-year-old woman at the station was also punched in the face during the same attack committed by Curtis Signal, 25, who was apprehended at a nearby men’s shelter a short time later.
EMS took both women to NYU Langone Hospital-Brooklyn with minor injuries.
Cops charged Signal with assault, harassment and reckless endangerment.
At around 5 a.m. on Jan. 18, a 35-year-old man standing on the Bay Ridge-bound R train platform at the 36th St. station in Sunset Park — slightly more than a dozen blocks from the 53rd St. station — was randomly pushed onto the tracks.
Cops later arrested 39-year-old homeless man Ivan Negron for the shoving. Negron, who was captured on an MTA surveillance camera as he fled the station, was grabbed after he was spotted at the Union Square station and was charged with assault.
Anyone with information regarding the suspect in Thursday’s attack is urged to call NYPD Crime Stoppers at (800) 577-TIPS. All calls will be kept confidential.
