Tense court date for subway shove susp

A repeat felon accused of shoving a Christmas day straphanger onto subway tracks in Harlem blew up at prosecutors and officers in volcanic outbursts that got him ejected from Manhattan Criminal Court on Thursday night.

“Can I get these cuffs off? I’ve been wearing these all day!” boomed Jose Gonzalez, 54, who is accused of shoving a 55-yearold man off a Harlem subway platform around 11:30 a.m. Wednesday.

Court officers removed him from the courtroom in the hope that he would calm down.

When they brought him back into court about 20 minutes later, he started screaming again.

As officers tried to remove him a second time, Gonzalez (inset) tried to pull away and sit down on a bench in the courtroom’s gallery. But the officers pulled him out of the courtroom and made him made him sit instead in a hallway outside with police.

When the officers brought Gonzalez back to court a third time, he blew up as a prosecutor went over his lengthy rap sheet, which includes three felony convictions and 59 misdemeanor convictions. So far in 2019, Gonzalez has been arrested eight times, and has been the object of two bench warrants ordering his arrest if he failed to appear in court.

His criminal record also includes state prison terms for attempted burglary in 1990 and attempted assault in 2001.

“I know my record! The f—- is he talking about my record?” fumed Gonzalez in his final outburst.Gonzalez, who is homeless, faces felony assault charges in the alleged subway shoving incident on Wednesday. He’s accused of pushing his victim into the downtownbound tracks used by Nos. 2 and 3 trains at the Lenox Ave. and 125th St. station. The victim needed sutures to close a gash on his head, and underwent a CT scan, the prosecutor said.

Gonzalez’s public defender, Casey Anis, asked that his client be freed without bail. Anis argued that Gonzalez committed his last violent crime in 2001, and most of his convictions were “very, very minor, nonviolent crimes of poverty.”

“He’s not a menace to society,” Anis said, adding, “He has a proven track record of coming back to court. Over three-quarters of the time he comes back to court.” Anis also said prosecutors can’t prove Gonzalez intended to push the man.

Judge Michael Gaffey set bail at $50,000 cash or $500,000 bond. Gonzalez was reported in jail on Thursday night.