Immigrant testifies on vicious MAGA attack in Manhattan subway
An immigrant construction worker said Monday that he was in pain for weeks after a Staten Island man in a MAGA hat cursed him and shoved him onto the train tracks at a Manhattan subway station last year.
Luis Lopez, 26, told jurors in Manhattan Supreme Court that the attack on April 20, 2018, left him bleeding and unconscious on the tracks of the No. 6 train at Union Square, with a head wound that had to be stapled closed.
Prosecutors said Lopez’s alleged attacker, Willie Ames, 49, a parolee, spewed hateful comments about “f——-g Mexicans” and “criminals” before beating Lopez and pushing him onto the tracks.
Ames (photo), who at the time of the assault was wearing a red MAGA (Make America Great Again) hat, faces assault and aggravated harassment charges.
Lopez said he didn’t even remember his friend and co-worker Alan Lopez, 27, pulling him from the tracks.
“I was scared because I was bleeding a lot and I saw the police,” said Lopez, who acknowledged that he is undocumented. “And at that time I thought that I had done something. I said, ‘What had I done?’ ”
Lopez and his pal, who later testified, denied they had said or done anything to provoke Ames. “No, we were not making fun of him,” Lopez said.
Alan Lopez said Ames was belligerent the minute he got on the train in Brooklyn, which he and Luis were already riding, saying things to no one in particular until he zeroed in on them.
Ames told cops that he felt threatened by Lopez and his friends and knocked Lopez down while defending himself.