Nailed derailer
Hero tells of how he chased down susp after A train crash
A heroic straphanger told the Daily News how he thwarted a man’s effort to derail a subway train — and then tackled the suspect after seeing him gleefully force a second train to jump the tracks.
Rikein Wilder, 44, was on his way to pick up an old high school talent show DVD from a friend’s place around 7:45 a.m. when he heard a clanking sound coming from the uptown A train tracks at 14th St.
When Wilder took a closer look, he saw a man piling items on the rails just south of the platform.
“I thought he was homeless and disturbed,” Wilder told The News. “I was like, ‘Maybe he’d get hit by the train.’ ”
Wilder watched the vandal — identified by cops as Demetrius Harvard — spend 10 minutes scattering items on the tracks before climbing up to the platform.
A few minutes later, Wilder said, he ran down a set of steps at the edge of the platform to remove some of the debris moments before a train rolled in.
That train didn’t derail. Wilder then ran upstairs to the station’s token booth to alert a transit worker.
When Wilder went back downstairs to the platform, he saw Harvard was at it again. Harvard had returned to the tracks to lay down even larger objects, including metal rail tie plates used for subway construction.
Wilder approached the edge of the platform to see what Harvard was doing — but he didn’t have enough time to go down to the tracks before an A train roared into the station at 8:14 a.m.
The metal plates on the track derailed that train. Its first car jumped the tracks and slammed into a series of structural pillars “like a pinball,” Wilder said.
When the train derailed, Harvard was hiding in a clear-up space used by transit workers to avoid moving trains, Wilder said.
After the crash, Harvard “started to leave and walk up the stairs from the tunnel smiling like he kicked a field goal,” said Wilder. “He’s laughing. He has a humorous face, and I was kind of disturbed.”
Wilder said he decided then to chase the saboteur. Harvard ran upstairs to the station’s mezzanine and Wilder said he caught up with him in front of the turnstiles, clipped the back of his foot and tussled with him to the ground.
Harvard nearly escaped — but Wilder said he was able to pin him against an emergency gate.
“I held him so long I sprained my wrist,” said Wilder, whose left arm was in a sling Tuesday. “His energy was very weird, and when I was holding him he was muttering, ‘My father used to abuse me,’ or ‘Please forgive me.’ ”
“I felt like I was intervening in the devil’s work,” he added.
Wilder said he held Harvard for about 15 minutes before cops and firefighters arrived. A few FDNY members responded before the police, and a burly fireman came to his aid.
“People were watching and filming with their phones, but I was the only one actually doing anything,” he recalled.
“I’m glad I caught him, because there’s people around New York City who are mentally ill and they’re not a threat to other people. ... It [the train] could’ve come through the subway platform, and it could have killed other people.”
Metropolitan Transportation Authority Chairman Patrick Foye said riders shouldn’t go onto subway tracks — but nonetheless he called “a hero three times over.”
“New Yorkers are known for putting others ahead of themselves, and that’s exactly what Wilder did,” said Foye. “He truly exemplifies the best of New York.”
Police arrested Harvard and charged him with reckless endangerment, criminal mischief, assault and criminal trespass.
A woman who knew the suspect as a youngster said he had “lots of mental health issues,” noting his mother was in and out of drug rehab while he grew up.
A Manhattan Criminal Court Judge on Monday evening set Harvard’s bail at $50,000 cash.