A Brooklyn straphanger who had his face randomly sliced open by a stranger on his method to work is offended to be one more random sufferer on the rails.
Earlton Massenburg Jr. recounted the horror to The Submit, recalling how he’d solely nodded off for a couple of minutes final Sunday when he was jolted awake by the searing ache of his face being sliced open.
“Once I opened my eyes, I noticed this dude and he had one thing sharp in his hand and it was like he had simply completed reducing me,” Massenburg, 31, mentioned of the bloody 9 a.m. ambush on a 4 practice on his method to work on Staten Island as an Amazon deliveryman.
“I wasn’t freaking out, I wasn’t panicking — I used to be offended,” he mentioned. “I feel that’s loopy contemplating we now have extra cameras and police round and all of that.”
As he opened his eyes, he caught a glimpse of his attacker bolting from the practice on the Crown Heights-Utica Avenue station.
“It was so fast however I did see that he was holding one thing sharp — it needed to be like a razor or one thing,” he recalled.
He didn’t notice how badly he was injured till after he alerted cops, and opened the digicam on his cellphone to try his face.
The gash stretches from his hairline, throughout his proper cheek, to his lip. He couldn’t depend all of the stitches when requested by The Submit.
“It’s just about all throughout my cheek in a horizontal line. Like, the entire cheek.”
Felony assaults like Massenburg’s are down 6% in transit within the first two months of this 12 months — from 117 to 101.
However they’re up 8%, from 95 to 103, in comparison with 2023, and have climbed a staggering 56% — 66 to 103 — in comparison with the identical interval in 2019, in line with NYPD information.
And misdemeanor assaults — which have much less extreme accidents however can nonetheless embody being punched, pushed or kicked — are up 7%, from 274 to 293, systemwide to this point this 12 months. In a single misdemeanor assault, a person was punched after an harmless knee bump on a Manhattan certain practice throughout the morning commute in November.
Massenburg’s terrifying assault was certainly one of a number of since Feb. 10, when two straphangers had been slashed in separate incidents in Manhattan and Brooklyn, cops mentioned. One other straphanger was randomly punched and slashed on a practice close to the Jamaica Heart cease round 3:15 p.m. Feb. 16 in Queens.
A 38-year-old man was crushed and robbed within the system Wednesday, when a mob of six thieves accosted him on the mezzanine of the of the Canal Avenue N/Q/R station, then made off along with his pockets at 4:30 a.m.
Simply hours earlier, a 32-year-old man had been standing on the J practice platform at Fulton Avenue-Alabama Avenue in Brownsville when a stranger he unintentionally ran into lashed out and began swinging a “sharp object,” reducing the sufferer on his head and finger, cops mentioned.
In response to excessive profile crimes, together with a lady who was fatally set ablaze on an idling F practice on the Coney Island-Stillwell Avenue station, Police Commissioner Jessica Tisch flooded the system with cops, and created quality-of-life patrols to crack down on minor infractions too.
To this point the patrols are being executed in Queens, however the NYPD plans to broaden them citywide. Total crime within the subways is down 27% to this point this 12 months, police information present.
Massenburg’s attacker stays on the free.
He went again to work the following day and continues to make the two-hour commute.
“I’m nonetheless fairly offended at it, however I can’t simply solely have that on my thoughts,” he mentioned. “I’ve plenty of different issues to cope with and do.”
