NEW YORK: A 30-year-old man who was screaming on a subway train died Monday afternoon after another rider grabbed him and placed him in a chokehold, according to police and video of the encounter.
The man, whose name has not been released, flailed his arms and kicked his legs as he attempted to free himself, the video shows. The video was taken by Juan Alberto Vazquez, a freelance journalist, who posted it on his Facebook page, “Luces de Nueva York.”
Witnesses said the victim had been acting in a “hostile and erratic manner” toward other train passengers when he was approached by the other man, 24, who moved to restrain him, according to police.
In the video, the man who died pushes off another man who held his arms down.
Police later took the rider who had placed the man in a chokehold into custody, questioned him and released him. The man has not been charged and the investigation was continuing, police said. He also was not identified by police.
Vazquez said in an interview that he was on the F train going northbound, on his way to a date, when the 30-year-old man boarded the train and began yelling.
“‘I don’t have food, I don’t have a drink, I’m fed up,’” the man screamed, according to Vazquez. “ ‘I don’t mind going to jail and getting life in prison. I’m ready to die.’”
Soon after, the 24-year-old man grabbed him.
Vazquez said the rider who was screaming was frightening but had not assaulted anyone.
“It was a very tense situation because you don’t know what he’s going to do afterwards,” Vazquez said in the interview Tuesday night.
Vazquez’s video shows the man being held down for at least two minutes before he stopped moving. The men continued to hold him down for about 50 seconds before releasing him.
“He’ll be all right,” said one person on the train as several others looked down at the man’s motionless body.
Police said they received a call at 2:27 p.m. about a fight that had broken out on an F train traveling north. When they arrived, they found the man unconscious.
He was taken to Lenox Health hospital in Greenwich Village, where he was pronounced dead. Police had not declared the death a homicide or announced arrests as of Tuesday.
Vazquez said he felt conflicted about the actions of the 24-year-old man.
“I am confused now because I’m not sure how to think about what the young man did,” he said. “He was trying to help.”
Vazquez said at the time he did not believe the 30-year-old man would die.
“None of us were thinking that,” he said. “He was moving and he was defending himself.”
The incident Monday occurred amid increasing subway ridership, and state and city officials have expressed optimism about falling crime rates and an apparent rise in confidence among riders in the safety of the city’s trains.
The rates of major crimes in the subway dropped 16% from Oct. 25 to Jan. 22, compared with the same period a year earlier, Gov. Kathy Hochul and Mayor Eric Adams announced earlier this year.
That drop coincided with an aggressive safety push that filled the system with more police officers. The move to add more police followed a rise in violence on the transit network in 2022, when there were 10 killings on the subway, compared with an average of two a year in the five years before the pandemic. The Metropolitan Transportation Authority had also said it planned to install security cameras inside every subway train.
The man, whose name has not been released, flailed his arms and kicked his legs as he attempted to free himself, the video shows. The video was taken by Juan Alberto Vazquez, a freelance journalist, who posted it on his Facebook page, “Luces de Nueva York.”
Witnesses said the victim had been acting in a “hostile and erratic manner” toward other train passengers when he was approached by the other man, 24, who moved to restrain him, according to police.
In the video, the man who died pushes off another man who held his arms down.
Police later took the rider who had placed the man in a chokehold into custody, questioned him and released him. The man has not been charged and the investigation was continuing, police said. He also was not identified by police.
Vazquez said in an interview that he was on the F train going northbound, on his way to a date, when the 30-year-old man boarded the train and began yelling.
“‘I don’t have food, I don’t have a drink, I’m fed up,’” the man screamed, according to Vazquez. “ ‘I don’t mind going to jail and getting life in prison. I’m ready to die.’”
Soon after, the 24-year-old man grabbed him.
Vazquez said the rider who was screaming was frightening but had not assaulted anyone.
“It was a very tense situation because you don’t know what he’s going to do afterwards,” Vazquez said in the interview Tuesday night.
Vazquez’s video shows the man being held down for at least two minutes before he stopped moving. The men continued to hold him down for about 50 seconds before releasing him.
“He’ll be all right,” said one person on the train as several others looked down at the man’s motionless body.
Police said they received a call at 2:27 p.m. about a fight that had broken out on an F train traveling north. When they arrived, they found the man unconscious.
He was taken to Lenox Health hospital in Greenwich Village, where he was pronounced dead. Police had not declared the death a homicide or announced arrests as of Tuesday.
Vazquez said he felt conflicted about the actions of the 24-year-old man.
“I am confused now because I’m not sure how to think about what the young man did,” he said. “He was trying to help.”
Vazquez said at the time he did not believe the 30-year-old man would die.
“None of us were thinking that,” he said. “He was moving and he was defending himself.”
The incident Monday occurred amid increasing subway ridership, and state and city officials have expressed optimism about falling crime rates and an apparent rise in confidence among riders in the safety of the city’s trains.
The rates of major crimes in the subway dropped 16% from Oct. 25 to Jan. 22, compared with the same period a year earlier, Gov. Kathy Hochul and Mayor Eric Adams announced earlier this year.
That drop coincided with an aggressive safety push that filled the system with more police officers. The move to add more police followed a rise in violence on the transit network in 2022, when there were 10 killings on the subway, compared with an average of two a year in the five years before the pandemic. The Metropolitan Transportation Authority had also said it planned to install security cameras inside every subway train.