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Police have a 30-year-old former deli worker in custody believed to be the suspect who pushed a subway rider off the platform and into the path of an oncoming train at 49th Street after an argument.
Law enforcement sources say the suspect has made statements to detectives implicating himself in the deadly push.
A law enforcement official told NBC 4 New York the man is suspected of pushing 58-year-old Ki-Suk Han off the platform at the N, Q, R station Monday afternoon. Han was hit by a southbound Q train and died.
Witnesses told police the suspect was mumbling to himself before he and Han began arguing on the platform.
A bystander recorded part of the fight between the two men and turned the video over to police, who released it to the public Monday night, and received several tips. The man who allegedly pushed Han is heard cursing and saying, in substance, "Leave me alone... stand in line, wait for the R train and that's it."
He then pushed Han onto the tracks, police said. Han tried to climb back up onto the platform but died after getting trapped between the train and the platform's edge.
Read more news on NBCNewYork.com
The Q train operator, Terrence Legree, told the Daily News he saw the man in the tracks and tried to pull the emergency brakes on the train, but couldn't stop it in time. Even after he heard the sound of the train hitting the man and the locomotive screeched to a halt, Legree said he ran out of the control booth and tried to help the victim.
"If someone can be saved, you have to do what you have to do," Legree, a 21-year employee with the MTA, told the News. But Han couldn't be saved -- a tragic fact that had Legree struggling with an array of emotions and questions more than a day after the man's death.
“All kinds of emotions from ‘Why is this happening?’ to ‘Why was that guy down there?’ to ‘What happened?’” Legree told the News. He was treated for shock after the incident.
Police had released several photos and video clips of the suspect wanted for allegedly pushing Han into the path of Legree's train. A law enforcement official tells NBC 4 New York that co-workers from a nearby deli where the suspect works tipped off police that their colleague might be the subway pusher after they recognized his voice from video.
Investigators then saw the man on surveillance video in the street talking to street vendors outside the subway station, and when they went back to the area Tuesday, he was there, speaking with the same vendors, sources said.
One of the newsstand vendors told NBC 4 New York the suspect was a well-known face in the area and that he spoke to her Tuesday morning.
"I showed him the picture [released by police Monday] and he goes, 'Oh, that's not me,'" said Elizabeth Williston. "I said, 'Yeah, that's you!' Because yesterday, he had the beard, the hair. But today, he had shaved his head, shaved his mustache and everything."
Subway pushes are unusual. Among the more high-profile was the January 1999 death of Kendra Webdale. A former mental patient admitted he shoved her to her death.
Following that, the state Legislature passed Kendra's Law, which lets mental health authorities supervise patients who live outside institutions to make sure they are taking their medications and aren't a threat to safety.
R. Umar Abbasi, a freelance photographer for the New York Post, talks about the controversial photo he took of the man about to be hit by a subway train after being pushed onto the tracks, saying he was attempting to alert the driver and there was "no way" he could have rescued the man.
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All subway platforms should have these double door for safety and to keep out noise/dust from the tracks.
What I can't believe is that the people were taping the thing and taking pics. Even the argument. Why would you want to video 2 people arguing?
Sadly it was not a white Christian who voted for Romney (and possibly intoxicated on alcohol) that pushed the unfortunate victim into the trains path. If this criminal did vote there is a 98% chance we know who he did vote for.
i hate new york city...been there once-won't go back...scary
It was disgusting for Matt Lauer and the Today show team to show the victim's trammeled body. Such images do not help apprehend the suspect, per Lauer's morally and intellectually bankrupt rationalization. Nor does showing such images serve to support the victim's bereaved family and friends - if anything, they further traumatize them. To what end were such images shown? For ratings? I understand the need to drum up ratings and make money for the network. But, you do not do that on the literally broken backs of the dead.
Just another day on the subway with an African American.
Obama voter.
There is a photo on front page of a New York paper showing the victim about to be killed by oncoming train.
Why the person taking the photo did not assist the man is beyond me.
Advice to immigrants: Be careful who you talk to and who approaches you in the street, you never know who considers you with enough murderous hate to kill you. Even if you're legal, keep a low profile, this country is not what you think it is...
one dead guy = new job opening, no pension to pay by the city or his employer, and savings from the social security fund. it ain't all bad news ya know
NYPost (for what it's worth) is reporting that the assailant was seen harassing other passengers. The 58 year old victim seems to have taken it on himself to play hero tell the assailant that he was scaring people and to calm down. I guess it wasnt a very good idea to do that while standing with one's back to the tracks while facing down a crazy guy. This was a great tragedy but I'd sum it up as follows:
1. crazy, violent guy
2. misguided guy with a hero complex (who died for it)
3. indifferent or just plain callous bystanders
No one's looking great here.
The New York Post tends to be the FOX News of NYC in things they say and twist in stories, but I guess I can see this being true. It would explain why the victim would choose to argue. Bad decision though. Leave it to police.
Too bad Han didn't have a 'piece' and blown that blackass SOB to hell...
to me, the point isn't whether the man pushed him. we know he did. it's the fact that the victim could have been saved, had the man taking the pictures, put the camera down and helped. i hope they go after the dumbass photographer.
Typical ape behavior from the city of the apes.
Just to be safe, we need to ban subway trains. And Blacks. Cause just banning guns and big sodas isn't having much of an effect.
Too bad all around.I can't imagine taking MF pictures and not helping.You'd think the guy who pushed him would've gone "oh @!$%#!" and helped.And the slide continues.It doesn't have to do with one thing,it has to do with everything. Let's watch the video and dance on the corpse of our morality,being careful not to bash choices
...
Sure.
Take a picture of the first black man you see and then claim he is the perp.
Talk about racial profiling.
.
Biden in 2016.
...
don't blame me, I voted for McGovern.
The disgusting thing here is that there is no money for proper supervision of the folks that need so much help. They don't take their medications and end up babbling incoherently to their delusions and voices that only they can hear. While usually not dangerous a paranoid schizophrenic can lash out if his voices tell him something needs to be done or that someone is the devil for example. Thank our loosy goosey judicial system with ensuring the rights of the mentally ill to be just as crazy as they want to be and the only way to get care is to break the law. I heard once that the largest mental health facility is Rikers Island in New York.
I pray this lunatic falls down in his cell and breaks all of his ribs, his neck, his back and most every bone in this monkeys body!!! Or if a natural fall can't accomplish this maybe a guard having a bad day could assist! I'm from Canada and I have a question. Why does A&E show nothing but blacks and hispanics commiting murders on the show "the First 48?" It seems every crime show based on true cases have about a 98% ratio of black to white criminals, blacks being the 98%. And again in this case it is a black guy. What the hell is going on in the USA?
fred dick, regardless of the ratio between whites, blacks, hispanics, and asians in our society, the majority of the inmate population committing serious crimes is black. It has nothing to do with racial profiling.
Quote from article above:
"A law enforcement official tells NBC 4 New York that co-workers from a nearby deli where the suspect works tipped off police that their colleague might be the subway pusher after they recognized his voice from video."
uh-oh, now the suspect has a good idea who gave his name out. I think if I was going to report someone for something like this, I would not want it to get out how the police got the name of a potential suspect.
Has Jesse Jackson, Sharpton, and Obama opened their racist pie holes yet, in support of the Asian? I can't begin to imagine what they'd be saying if a non-black pushed a black to their death.
Really, you hate blacks so much that you are that fearful? Why not post your real name if you feel so strongly about it. No? Afraid?
Bishop sounds like an Angry Black Man.
I wonder if he will kill anyone on his way home tonight.
Agree, Bishop is a douche.
sad to go that way
Oh here we go...the black community is going to cry racism, even with proof of the video.
Well of course. He only did it because society screwed him over because he's black.
Wow too bad for the guy that got pushed, but even worse are all the anonymous p*ssy racists plastering their crap all over this site.
Just a matter of time before all you cowards die off, and make no mind about it, if you post crap like that anonymously you are the exact explanation of what a frightened little coward is. You should be so proud.
Just shows that this country is still full of low IQ's and idiots, both left and right and democratic and republican.
Pathetic
Bishop35, in my experience, the only people who have exhibited outright racism (and I've been a victim myself) were black. Sorry, but it is what it is.
We are not racist. We just hate @!$%#s is all. White ones included.