RANDOM ATTACK ON THE SUBWAY
STRANGER STABS 31-YEAR-OLD TO DEATH IN TORONTO
Aman was arrested on Toronto's High Park subway platform in a dramatic takedown Thursday after allegedly stabbing women he didn't know on a subway train. One woman died and another was injured.
A passenger cornered the suspect while others tried to help the victims before police arrived, a witness said.
Video footage from the scene shows passengers leaning out of a stopped subway car and others standing on the platform staring as police approach a man with a drawn Taser, bellowing for him to surrender.
“Get on the floor, get on the ground,” police shouted.
A man casually walks a few steps and then suddenly kneels.
A witness said police hit him with a conducted energy weapon, but before that the suspect was cornered by another passenger.
“I heard this woman run past me and then there was a commotion at the other end of the train — children crying, people screaming. And then this lady just calmly walked past me. She was bleeding from her hand and she said, `Help me, help me,'” John Marchesan told Citynews.
Marchesan, a Citynews employee, was on his way to work on the eastbound train at the time of the 2 p.m. incident.
“I saw that this gentleman was holding this suspect in the corner, and he seemed to be holding another knife, or an ice picktype instrument in his hand. And he was telling him to `Put it down, put it down,'” Marchesan said.
Vanessa Kurpiewska, 31, of Toronto, was pronounced dead at a hospital and a 37-year-old woman was treated and released from hospital, police said.
“The accused and victims were not known to each other,” Toronto police Laura Brabant said in a news release.
Police said Neng Jia Jin, 52, of Toronto, was charged with first-degree murder and attempt murder.
The attack is another in a flurry of recent incidents on or around TCC stations that creates a sense of unease among passengers. Each is a frightening reminder of the potential fragility of strangers and personal vulnerability in such close quarters.
Stranger attacks, although fairly rare, cause disproportionate anxiety, especially when they happen in public, supposedly safe places where many have no alternative to being there. Many children take city transit to school. Commuters pack buses and trains, often in oblivion with earphones in and head down. Public transit is a standard way home after a night out.
There was a time when big-city subways were the quintessential dangerous place. No one wants that sense to return.
City officials have been acknowledging public fear when transit attacks hit the news.
This time, Toronto Mayor John Tory called the attacks “extremely troubling.”
“I was shocked to hear about the fatal stabbing at High Park station this afternoon. We can never accept acts of violence of this kind happening anywhere in our city,” he said in a released statement.
“Our transit system should always be a safe place for everyone at all times. We will simply have to sit down again with the TTC and police officials to see what more we can do.”
There has been several incidents of apparently random violence on Toronto's transit system in recent months.
In April, a woman was arrested after another woman was allegedly pushed onto the subway tracks at the Bloor-yonge station and seriously injured in the fall, police said; a man was shot and killed outside Sherbourne station, and another stabbed on the St. George subway platform.
In June, a man was shot dead outside the Sheppard-yonge station; a woman was lit on fire aboard a TTC bus at the Kipling station, and later died of her injuries. That was also described as a random attack.
At the time, Rick Leary, TTC'S chief operating officer, issued a statement on safety, saying, “I know incidents like this are concerning for our customers — and I share that concern.
“Safety is paramount to all we do and I am committed to ensuring the TTC remains as safe as possible. We move hundreds of millions of customers every year without incident, but we cannot and do not take that for granted.”
Three weeks later, an 85-year-old woman was assaulted at the same transit station where the woman was set on fire.