Busted in subway slay
Teens charged in New Year’s death of good Samaritan
Two teens have been charged with murder for their role in a New Year’s morning clash that ended with a good Samaritan being killed by an oncoming train, police said Friday.
A drunk straphanger obnoxiously blowing on a New Year’s Eve party horn sparked the brutal 2:45 a.m. fight at the Fordham Road station in Fordham Heights, suspects Braulio Garcia, 17, and Jonathan Aponte, 16, told police, according to court documents. The teens told authorities they suspected the drunken man was armed.
Garcia and Aponte surrendered at different Bronx precincts with family members on Sunday and Wednesday, police said. Both were charged as adults but are being held at juvenile facilities.
Nine others, including three teen girls, are still being sought.
The teens allegedly got angry at the 38-year-old man who was wandering around the platform and blowing the horn to celebrate the start of the new year.
When the teens asked him to stop, they spotted a small handgun sticking out of his fanny pack, Aponte told police.
“When we tried to leave together [the] two guys I was with grabbed the guy and bear-hugged him,” Aponte told investigators, according to court papers. “The guy got away and ran away from us. My two friends chased after him and I chased him too.”
The teens attacked, punching
and kicking the man repeatedly as they rifled through his fanny pack, taking his wallet and cash, prosecutors said. One of the teens, who was still at large, flashed a knife.
As he lay on the ground, the victim “was forced off the subway platform and onto the train tracks
below,” prosecutors say.
The victim suffered a fractured arm when he fell onto the tracks as a D train entered the station.
That’s when Roland Hueston tried to help. He jumped down onto the tracks and tried to flag the approaching train as he attended to the injured man, prosecutors said.
The train slammed into Hueston, killing him. Yet his sacrifice slowed the train down before it hit the man sprawled out on the tracks.
When the train finally stopped, the motorman’s car was “hanging over” the wounded man’s body, prosecutors said. EMS took the injured man to St. Barnabas Hospital, where he was treated and released. The surviving victim told police he has no recollection of how he got back onto the platform.
Hueston didn’t know the man he died saving, his relatives told the Daily News.
“He cared a lot about the people around him and would do anything for them,” his mother Milicent said. “Although he didn’t know the person he tried to save, we’re not surprised that he tried to save them when they needed him the most. He’s a hero and will continue to be remembered as a hero in our family and in the community.”
Police arrested Garcia and Aponte on murder, manslaughter, robbery and other charges. A Bronx criminal court judge ordered Garcia held without bail. Aponte was ordered held on $250,000 bail.
Cops were asking anyone with information on the other suspects to call (800) 577-TIPS.