10GOON BREAKS RIDER’S JAW ON TRAIN
Sucker-punches stranger in Brooklyn
A braggadocious brute wearing a letter jacket broke the jaw of a stranger in an unprovoked attack on a Brooklyn subway train, police said Tuesday.
“I’m bigger than you, and I can beat you up!” the sporty assailant shouted repeatedly at the 25-year-old victim on a Crown Heights-bound No. 4 train about 1 a.m. on April 30, cops said.
“When I sat down, that’s when he sucker-punched me,” the victim, who asked to be identified only as Travis, told the Daily News in an exclusive interview Tuesday with his jaw still wired shut.
The attacker punched Travis twice in the face, cracking his jaw with each blow. The attacker ran off and has not been caught.
Travis was on his way home from his retail job in Times Square with his girlfriend and a co-worker when the psycho, who behaved drunkenly, first approached them as the train passed through lower Manhattan.
“He was trying to talk to us,” Travis said. “He started making jokes and stuff, roasting me. I thought he was joking at first. He was like, ‘I’m a drug dealer, I can beat you, I’m bigger than you.’ ”
The abuse continued as the train rumbled through Brooklyn. Travis tried to deescalate the situation.
“I decided to sit down, calm down,” he said. “I sat down, let it go.”
But after he took a seat the bully without warning pummeled him on the left and right side of his jaw as the train approached its last stop at Utica Ave.
“I wasn’t expecting him to hit him,” Travis’ shocked girlfriend said. “I just figured he was just saying words.”
As her boyfriend reeled from the blows, she took action.
“I pushed him off the train,” Travis’ girlfriend said of the assailant. “If I didn’t do anything, he would have still been hitting him. He was ready to hit on him again.”
Travis and his girlfriend continued on to his East Flatbush home. But when he tried to eat a chewy Jolly Rancher candy blood gushed from his mouth.
“My teeth just split, and then I saw blood coming out,” Travis said.
After he slept, his mom took him to Kings County Hospital, where doctors did X-rays and wired his jaw shut.
The right side of his jaw was still swollen and sore Tuesday. He’ll need to keep his jaw wired shut for at least another week, doctors say.
Cops released a photo of the suspect Tuesday and asked the public’s help identifying him. He is described as black, between 30 and 35, 6-feet-1 and about 200 pounds. He was wearing white pants, black sneakers and a red-and-yellow jacket with the letter “R” on the front.
Anyone with information is asked to call Crime Stoppers at (800) 577-TIPS. All calls will be kept confidential.