NYPD detectives have arrested a 21-year-old man for randomly stabbing a young woman in the back inside a Chelsea subway station during a disturbing, unprovoked attack, police said Friday.
Carlos Rivera said nothing to his 25-year-old victim as he jammed a blade into her side as she descended a flight of stairs at the W. 23rd St. station during rush hour Tuesday, court documents show. Rivera was standing in the middle of the staircase and knifed her as she walked past. No one else was on the stairs at the time, cops said.
After the 6:30 p.m. stabbing, Rivera calmly put up his hood and exited the station, again saying nothing, prosecutors said Friday as they arraigned him on attempted murder and assault charges.
His victim didn’t realize she had been stabbed until she reached the bottom of the stairs at the C/E platform and “realized she was bleeding from a large wound on the left side of her torso,” prosecutors said.
The wound spanned six inches from her chest to her back and was about three inches deep, police later determined. EMS rushed the woman to Bellevue Hospital, where she was treated.
Cops tracked down and apprehended Rivera on Wednesday following a brief investigation.
His victim picked Rivera out of a photo array, but claimed she didn’t know him nor had any interaction with him in the subway.
A Manhattan Criminal Court judge ordered Rivera held on $60,000 bail during a brief arraignment procedure on Thursday. Prosecutors, who asked for $300,000 bail, said he has two open cases in other boroughs: a grand larceny charge in Brooklyn in May and a petit larceny charges from Queens in June.
A day after the Chelsea attack, a 29-year-old woman was slashed in the arm and back during a mugging on a No. 3 train rumbling into the Wall St. station in lower Manhattan, cops said.
The woman’s train was entering the station from Brooklyn around 11:15 p.m. Wednesday when a man in his 20s sporting a white surgical mask pulled a knife and tried to rob her, cops said.
The mugger slashed as he stole her cellphone, cops said. He then jumped off the train at Wall St. and ran out of the exit, where he was recorded leaving the station, cops said.
The woman suffered injuries to her left arm, left elbow, both hands and back, cops said. EMS rushed her to Bellevue Hospital, where she was treated for minor injuries.
NYPD
A 29-year-old woman was slashed and robbed on a No. 3 train at the Wall St. station late Wednesday by a mask-wearing suspect. (NYPD)
Cops on Thursday released surveillance images of the mugger, hoping someone would recognize him. He’s described as Black and about 5-foot-11 with a slim build. At the time of the incident, he was wearing a blue hoodie and carrying a gray backpack, cops said.
The back-to-back assaults on woman straphangers in the New York City subway system comes as police scale back the number of cops underground from 300 overnight patrols to 200, officials said.
The fewer patrols were going to be bolstered by precision policing, where cops would send additional patrols to high-crime subway hubs.
“We’ll continue making the subways safer by using our data-driven approach to deploy officers to the areas we know are problematic — ensuring cops are on the right trains, at the right stations and at the right times,” the department said in a statement last month.
As of Sunday, overall crime in the subway system had dropped by 2%, down from 1,273 crimes at this time last year to 1,246.
Assaults on the subway remain a concern and have jumped 7%, from 325 this time last year to 349, NYPD statistics show.
Cops are asking anyone with information regarding Wednesday’s attack to call NYPD Crime Stoppers at (800) 577-TIPS. All calls will be kept confidential.
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