Seat-hog gang in hammer attack
Subway bash over request to move over
A group of straphangers went berserk on a Manhattan subway train — punching and kicking a passenger and attacking his friend with a hammer after one victim had asked them to move over, cops said.
The incident unfolded on a northbound J train at around 9 p.m. Friday, according to police.
One of the victims — ages 29 and 53 — politely asked a member of the group to make room so he could sit down, cops said.
One of the suspects took offense, and started arguing with the older victim before he and around six or seven of his friends started pummeling him.
While that rider was being punched and kicked, the younger man jumped in to help him — and someone in the gang responde by pulling out a hammer and hitting him in the head with it several times, cops said.
The attackers all darted off the train as soon as it pulled into the Bowery station and fled on foot.
A straphanger managed to snap several photos of a few of the suspects before they left the train. None had been arrested as of Sunday evening.
It wasn’t clear how badly injured the victims were.
The terrifying attack came as the NYPD continues to deal with an uptick in violent incidents on the city’s subways.
Less than two weeks ago, a Dutch tourist told cops she was assaulted by a senior citizen — who inexplicably struck her in the back with his cane as she walked on a subway platform at Grand Central station.
The 21-year-old victim told cops she was walking on the 4-train platform on March 28 at around 10:45 p.m. when the 75- year-old suspect smacked her with his wooden cane.
And on March 19, a 36year-old man was slashed by a Brooklyn ex-con who had just gotten out of prison after serving 23 years for manslaughter.
Earl Spivey, 45 — who was busted in 1993 and was just paroled in October — allegedly went after the straphanger after the victim accidentally bumped into him on a Bronx-bound 4 train, sources said.
The attack unfolded just as the train pulled into the 59th Street station. Spivey was later charged with menacing, assault and criminal possession of a weapon.