Pipe thug strikes in subway
In the latest example of violence in the city’s troubled transit system, a straphanger was knocked unconscious at a Queens subway station over the weekend.
A bearded creep struck the 31year-old victim in the head “multiple times” with a metal pipe shortly before 1 a.m. Saturday at the Queensboro Plaza station and fled, according to police Monday.
The victim was taken to New York Presbyterian-Weill Cornell Medical Center to be treated for several cuts to his head and was listed in stable condition, they said.
The unprovoked assault is just the latest in a recent outbreak of violence in the city subways, as New Yorkers continue to worry about their safety in the system.
The attack comes after a Brazilian tourist was stabbed in the back at the Queens Plaza station in yet another unprovoked attack Thursday, according to police.
The 29-year-old victim was standing at the station when a stranger ran up behind him and slashed him in the neck at around 10:30 a.m., according to authorities and other sources.
“People get stabbed at the end of this station, sometimes in the elevator,” an MTA worker at the Queens Plaza station told The Post on Monday. “It’s very, very bad.
“We need to think of the people that wake up at 4 in the morning and run to catch their train,” said the worker, who asked not to be identified. “They deserve a clean and safe train ride. Not to be looking over their shoulder and standing because the homeless [are] passed out on the seats.”
Last Wednesday, a 16-year-old boy was stabbed in the left thigh at around 3:20 p.m. at the Coney Island-Stillwell Avenue station in Brooklyn, and was taken to NYU Langone Hospital where he was listed in stable condition, police said.
Also that day, a 58-year-old female MTA worker was slugged in the face by a deranged homeless man on a lower Manhattan subway platform, with a bystander also clocked by the brute when he tried to help.
On Feb. 13, musician Iain Forrest, 29, was entertaining commuters with his cello at a Midtown station when a crazed woman grabbed Forrest’s metal water bottle, smashed him in the back of the head and walked away without uttering a word.
Forrest said in an Instagram post Sunday that he was finished playing music in the subways after the attack, the second he was subjected to in less than two years.
“I have been punched, choked and now bashed in the head,” he wrote. “I love performing for you all in the subway, but I’m at my breaking point and I can’t take more injury or harm.”
His assailant remained on the loose Monday.
“I see it all the time,” subway rider Ricky Mohammed told The Post. “Going to work, coming home from work — it doesn’t matter the time or who’s around. The train is not a safe place.
“No matter what the politicians try to tell you, it’s dangerous.”
According to NYPD stats, transit crime dipped last year but is spiking so far in 2024. Overall transit crime is up 22.6% since the start of the year through Feb. 11, compared with the same period last year, with felony assaults up more than 10%, the data shows.
The numbers include a more than 39% leap in grand larceny.