Four people were viciously assaulted in the last few weeks in a string of knife attacks on the subway. One injury required 30 stitches.
The most recent attack happened Wednesday.
At around 2:30 a.m., a knife-wielding man grabbed a woman at the Fort Hamilton Parkway F train station. Putting a knife to her throat, he demanded her purse and her iPhone, which she gave him.
Before he left, he also ordered her to take off her underwear.
On Friday, Sept. 16, a 34-year-old man was slashed on his right cheek while riding the A train near the Rockaway Boulevard station. He needed 30 stitches to repair the gash.
And police are looking for a woman who is slashing train riders in the face in the Bronx.
Her first victim, a 19-year-old woman, was slashed across the face on Sept. 6 while riding a northbound 4 train near 170th Street. Six days later, an 18-year-old woman riding the 4 train near Mt. Eden Avenue was cut on her face.
Police say they are looking for a black or Hispanic woman, about 17 to 25.
MTA board member Andrew Albert said he cannot remember such vicious attacks.
“It has been quite a while,” he said, adding that not since a lunatic ran around stabbing people with hypodermic needles in 1997 has he heard of something similar.
As crime inches up, so do nerves about a return to the city’s 1990s crime levels.
“I sure hope everything isn’t going back to the way it was,” Albert said.
Not gang violence
Even though fall is the time for gang violence —
as gangs initiate teens returning to school — a local expert said this
doesn’t look like gang violence. The female suspect struck twice, and
one slashing is usually enough for a gang initiation, said Iesha Sekou,
director of Street Corner Resources, a Harlem-based group working
against gun and gang violence. “This seems to be someone acting out of
anger,” she told Metro, but cautioned the slasher: “You could have the
whole train turn on you. What happens then?”
Follow Alison Bowen on Twitter @AlisonatMetro.
