Popping off at transit
Three MTA employees injured in a pair of attacks in Harlem
Three MTA employees were assaulted Friday in two separate attacks in Harlem less than two hours apart, police said.
In the first attack, a man man sucker-punched a 31year-old train conductor as an uptown-bound A train pulled into the 125th St./St. Nicholas Ave. station around 12:50 p.m.
The attacker fled the station, police said.
As EMTs rushed to the scene to treat the injured conductor, uptown A and D trains were switched to the local tracks for about the next half-hour.
The train conductor was taken to Mt. Sinai-St. Luke’s Hospital to be treated for minor facial swelling.
In a second incident around 2:35 p.m., an unhinged motorist chucked a glass bottle at a bus on W. 136th St. and Broadway, police said.
The bottle shattered a bus window, injuring the bus driver and another MTA employee.
The bottle-tossing motorist got into a black Ford and fled the scene, authorities said.
Both injured MTA employees were treated at Columbia Presbyterian Hospital and left with minor lacerations to their noses and ears, according to police.
“The pattern of unprovoked attacks on transit workers is reprehensible to the MTA, our employees and all concerned New Yorkers.” the agency said in a statement.
“We are fully cooperating with NYPD investigators and expect the perpetrators, when arrested, to be subjected to maximum prosecution and sentencing,” the statement said.
No arrests had been made, and both incidents remained under investigation.
Assaulting an MTA employee is a class D felony and carries charges of up to seven years behind bars. Signs on trains and buses warn passengers of the severe penalty.
Anyone with information about the assaults can call Crime Stoppers at (800) 577TIPS. All calls are confidential.