Cops say they got guy in two subway stabs
A violent straphanger wanted for stabbing two women in separate unprovoked attacks at Brooklyn train stations is behind bars, cops said Saturday.
Denzel Hodge, 26, was taken into custody early Friday morning after NYPD Transit cops found him hanging around the Flatbush Ave. station, cops said. The officers recognized Hodge from wanted posters for train station stabbings on Tuesday and Feb. 19, police said.
The Brooklyn resident was inside the Livonia Ave. No. 3 train station at Van Siclen Ave. in East New York about 2:50 p.m. Feb. 19 when he zeroed in on a 20-year-old woman, cops said.
He crept up behind her, punched her in the back of the head and began screaming at her, police said. When the woman turned, he flashed a knife and stabbed her three times in the stomach before running off.
EMS rushed the woman to an area hospital, where she was treated and released.
Hodge resurfaced at the Crescent St. J/Z subway stop in East New York at 8:10 a.m. Tuesday. Dressed in the same puffy jacket, black pants and striped sneakers, he followed a 77-year-old woman walking down the stairs to the train platform and stabbed her in the back, causing a deep cut, cops said.
He said nothing to the senior as he ran out of the station.
EMS rushed his victim to Jamaica Hospital, where she was treated and released.
Hodge, who has an extensive criminal history that includes assault, turnstile jumping, robbery and criminal possession of a loaded firearm, is facing two counts of assault, menacing and weapons possession for the unprovoked attacks.
His arraignment in Brooklyn Criminal Court was pending Saturday.
The unprovoked attacks come as cops tackle a massive uptick in crime on the subways.
Last month, cops investigated 182 crimes in transit, a 73% jump over the 105 that occurred the same month last year.
Transit crimes over the last few weeks included a particularly gruesome incident in which straphanger Frank Abrowka smeared his own feces on a woman sitting at a Bronx train station.