SUBWAY VICTIME: MORE POLICE!
Bares stab ordeal: ‘There were no cops’
A woman who was stabbed on a Manhattan subway train over the weekend says that she’s “glad to be alive” — and that her crazed attacker should be locked up before he commits more violence.
Ashley Painson, 29, on Tuesday recounted her harrowing ordeal aboard the A train in an interview with The Post, claiming a fight broke out on Sunday when she refused to open a door at a Midtown station for another man who hadn’t paid his fare.
“The guy came in and started getting in my face and calling me names,” Painson said.
Her attacker demanded she get off at 14th Street — and when she didn’t, he hit her in the head, sparking a fight that ended with Painson being stabbed in the gut.
‘I could’ve lost my life’
“He gave me five stitches,” she said, raising her shirt to show bandages near her abdomen. “I’m glad to be alive.”
She now says she is concerned by a lack of police patrolling the subway system.
“They need to have the train stations be more safe, more police,” she said. “I don’t know why there were no cops.
“Going through the tunnel, you don’t know what could happen. Anything could happen. I could have lost my life trying to fight this guy off me.”
The attacker, who was wearing a camouflage backpack and carrying a bag, was seen leaving the subway at Canal Street, she said.
A witness captured cellphone video showing the suspect getting off the train with his knife still in his hands.
No arrests had been reported as of early Wednesday morning.
‘Shouldn’t be on street’
“I’m angry because somebody needs to get that man off the streets because somebody else could get injured,” Painson said.
“It could be worse than what happened to me. He shouldn’t be on the street.”
“I don’t know why women are being targeted,” she went on. “We aren’t even a threat . . . Nobody deserves to get stabbed over a dispute.”
After the attack, Painson called her mom, Charlene Shields, 48.
“He’s lucky that she was by herself because if I was there, I would’ve killed him,” Shields said, adding that violence in the city has her constantly worried about the well-being of her nine kids.
The attack against Painson came after a surge in subway-system crime from October to November.
Felony robberies more than doubled from October to November, from 40 to 88. Overall felonies — including grand larceny and assault — jumped 45 percent month-over-month, according to MTA data.