Aim to please
Subway guardian’s quick draw disarmed thug
TROUBLE RODE the No. 1 train, but it was stopped by a courageous transit worker.
“You know what?” a crazed man asked as the local stopped at the Columbus Circle station, according to a witness. “I’m going to cut up a few people on this train today.”
The man then activated the emergency brakes and scanned the platform, apparently to see if any police officers were in the station, according to a transit report on the incident.
Carlos Padro, 55, who was on the train, isn’t a cop. But he was one for 26 years before he retired and took an MTA security job.
“I pulled out my revolver and told him to drop it,” the former NYPD detective said.
What the deranged man claimed was a knife turned out to be an electric toothbrush. But Padro didn’t hesitate to act.
For his actions on Oct. 30, Padro has been nominated for a New York Daily News Hometown Heroes in Transit award.
Padro is a member of an MTA fare-evasion team that focuses on buses. He was riding the train at 5 a.m. to a Harlem bus depot to log in for his shift when the belligerent rider inexplicably started cursing and threatening a man seated across from him, according to the transit report.
The target of his anger got off at 42nd St.
By the time the train was at 59th St., the crazedrazed rider had turned his venomous omous attention to another man in the car, the report states. ates.
“He went to the middle door near where e I was sitting,” Padro said. d. “He goes out. He looks to the left. Then he looks too the right. I say to myself, ‘He’s‘ He’s looking for the he cops.’ ”
That’s when Padro grabbed a woman who just boarded, told her to stand behind him — and drew his revolver. Padro dee tained the man until police arrived and took him intoo custody.
“Who knows what hee would have done. Maybe something. Maybe nothing,” Padro said. “I figured, ‘ Let me do something before e someone gets hurt.’ ”
Padro says he’s no hero.o. His reward came during an- other early morning commute when some of the riders who weree were bristling with fear that morningg morning thanked him forrfor taking action.
“It feltt felt good,” he said..said.