Police: Suspect Implicates Self in Subway Push

Man Hit by Train After He’s Shoved

NEW YORK — Authorities said a suspect implicated himself Tuesday in the death of a New Yorker who was pushed onto the tracks and photographed just before a train hit him — an image that drew virulent criticism after it appeared on the front page of the New York Post.

Investigators recovered security video showing a man fitting the description of the suspect working with street vendors near Rockefeller Center, said New York Police Department spokesman Paul Browne.

“The individual we talked to made statements implicating himself in the incident,” Browne said.

Witnesses told investigators they saw the suspect talking to himself Monday afternoon before he approached Ki-Suck Han at the Times Square station, got into an altercation with him and pushed him into the train’s path.

Police took the man into custody Tuesday, but no charges are expected to be announced until today, Browne said.

Han, 58, of Queens, died shortly after being struck. Police said he tried to climb a few feet to safety but got trapped between the train and the platform’s edge.

The Post published a photo on its front page Tuesday of Han with his head turned toward the train, his arms reaching up but unable to climb off the tracks in time. It was shot by freelance photographer R. Umar Abbasi, who was waiting to catch a train as the situation unfolded.

Abbasi said in an audio clip on the Post’s website that he used the flash on his camera to try to warn the train driver that someone was on the tracks. He said he wasn’t strong enough to lift Han.

“I wanted to help the man, but I couldn’t figure out how to help,” Abbasi said. “It all happened so fast.”

Emotional questions arose Tuesday over the published photograph of the helpless man standing before the oncoming train accompanied by the headline that read in part: “This man is about to die.”

The moral issue among professional photojournalists in such situations is “to document or to assist,” said Kenny Irby, an expert in the ethics of visual journalism at the Poynter Institute, a Florida-based nonprofit journalism school.

Other media outlets chimed in on the controversy, many questioning why the photograph had been taken and published.

The Post declined to share the photo with The Associated Press for distribution.