A 39-year-old man was charged on Tuesday with shoving a lady’s head towards a transferring subway practice in an apparently random assault at a Manhattan station that left the lady critically injured, the police mentioned.
The person, Kamal Semrade, was arrested late Monday at a homeless shelter close to La Guardia Airport in Queens, the police mentioned. He was charged with tried homicide and assault and was awaiting arraignment Tuesday night, officers mentioned.
The shoving episode was the newest unsettling instance of the type of random violent crime that has made some New Yorkers cautious of the subway and has led officers to flood stations with cops to reassure riders that the mass-transit system is secure.
Mr. Semrade and his sufferer, 35, boarded the identical E practice early Sunday, with Mr. Semrade getting into first by leaping a turnstile, the police mentioned. Each received off when the practice stopped on the Lexington Avenue/63rd Avenue station at round 6 a.m., the police mentioned. (The E was working on the F line due to observe work.)
Because the practice started to drag out, the police mentioned, Mr. Semrade approached the lady from behind and pushed her head into it, inflicting her to fall again on the platform. She was taken to NewYork-Presbyterian/Weill Cornell Medical Middle in vital situation with spinal accidents and cuts to her head, the police mentioned.
The police didn’t launch the lady’s identify, however a web-based fund-raiser established to assist pay her medical bills identifies her as Emine Yilmaz Ozsoy, an illustrator and designer who immigrated to New York from Turkey.
Photos of the attacker captured by cameras within the station and circulated by the police helped result in Mr. Semrade’s arrest, officers mentioned. The photographs present him carrying a darkish shirt, darkish pants and white sneakers and clutching a espresso cup.
Richard Davey, the president of New York Metropolis Transit, the Metropolitan Transportation Authority division that operates the subway, praised the Police Division for transferring shortly to make an arrest.
“It’s now as much as prosecutors to pursue most penalties obtainable underneath the legislation,” Mr. Davey mentioned in an announcement.
Investigators consider Mr. Semrade had been residing on the Queens shelter for 2 years, the police mentioned. However metropolis social service data present he has been assigned to a Bronx shelter since April 2021, in line with an individual with entry to the data who was not licensed to talk about them publicly. The explanation for the obvious discrepancy was unclear.
Maria Cramer and Andy Newman contributed reporting. Kirsten Noyes contributed analysis.
