Gruesome death by No. 2 subway
Vic was breaking up fight at Harlem stop ‘Atomic Cafe’ filmmaker Rafferty dies
A man trying to break up a fight at a Harlem subway station Friday was killed when he was pushed as a train barreled in, wedging him between the platform and a subway car, police and witnesses said.
Cops said the victim intervened between a man and two teenage girls who were fighting on the platform at the 125th Street and Lenox Ave. station of the No. 2 and 3 trains.
According to witnesses, the man in the fight pushed the victim as a downtown No. 2 train pulled into the station. Passengers said the pushed man lost his balance, and fell between two cars as the train was still moving.
Witnesses said the train pinned his head and arm to the platform.
“When the train stopped, my mother said there’s a guy stuck between the train and the platform,” said Nicole Ruiz, who was getting off the train that pulled into the station. “I saw it. He was still alive. I was praying to God, I really was. I was praying for him to be alive.
“They put him on a bed and wrapped him up with a black bag. That’s when I realized he was dead. I had a lot of hope he was going to survive. Just seeing him dead. It just hit me in so many ways. It was my first time seeing someone dead.”
There were no cameras on the downtown platform, but investigators were using video from the uptown side to search for clues about what happened.
“We’re looking at cameras from the uptown side and trying to piece it together,” said a police source.
Cops said the man involved in the original fight fled the scene and was being sought.
The girls he was fighting left the scene, but did not flee, a police source said.
They were also being sought.
Documentary filmmaker Kevin Rafferty, known for “The Atomic Cafe,” about nuclear bombs in World War II, and the unlikely Ivy League football tale “Harvard Beats Yale 29-29,” died Thursday at 73.
Rafferty (inset), who was battling cancer, passed away surrounded by family, said his wife Paula Longendyke.
Rafferty, a first cousin of President George W. Bush and the cinematographer for Michael Moore’s debut documentary “Roger and Me,” studied architecture at Harvard and painted motel rooms for a year before finding his calling as a moviemaker.
He went on to produce eight documentaries on a variety of topics from cigarettes to politics to American hate groups, including the KKK and the American Nazi Party. Rafferty also worked as a cinematographer for D.A. Pennebaker’s 1993 documentary “The War Room.”