Two men were slashed, unprovoked by an unhinged stranger on a Queens subway platform, police said Thursday.
Cops released surveillance images of the suspect and are asking the public’s help in identifying him and tracking him down.
A 42-year-old man was slashed in the forehead by the assailant on the Manhattan-bound E train platform in the Kew Gardens-Union Turnpike station around 3:15 p.m. Wednesday.
Kew Gardens resident Carlos Plasencia was on his daily route to the Manhattan restaurant where he works as a server when he spotted the commotion — little expecting that he, too, would soon become a victim of the violence.
“I saw people yelling and screaming on the back of the platform. … They were getting closer and closer, and I see somebody was bleeding and another person was bleeding,” Plasencia, 50, recalled. “Some lady was saying, ‘Call the police!’ I was right next to the conductor. As soon as I was telling [the conductor to call police] … the guy jumped right in front of me with a knife in his hand.”
“He was yelling, ‘What’s up? What’s up?’ He looked like he was high, and he was just attacking people for no reason,” he said. “At that point … I just thought, ‘I have to make it home. I have to be home.’ I’m a father of four, so you know, I was just trying to make it home.”
Plasencia said the irate stranger, while clutching the knife in his hand, punched him below his left eye, somehow leaving him with a gash above his eyebrow.
“I think it was part of the back of the knife that got me on my eyebrow,” he said. “I don’t think it was the blade. I don’t know exactly what happened.”
The suspect ran out of the station and remains at large, cops said.
Plasencia said he was disheartened to find that only one bystander, a woman, stopped to check on him, while others paused only to film him on their phones.
“The conductor of the train, I guess he was doing videos for TikTok,” he shrugged. “He didn’t do nothing. Nobody else did nothing. Everybody was just trying to make a video to post it. At that point, I got mad, because … you know, what the hell is that?”
Medics took the younger victim to New York-Presbyterian Hospital Queens, where he was treated for minor wounds and released.
Plasencia, although shaken, didn’t believe he was badly injured and continued on his way into Manhattan.
“I was thinking it was a little scratch,” he said. “I went to work, and I saw myself in the mirror. Then I went to Elmhurst Hospital. I have seven stitches on my eyebrow.”
The suspect is described as Black with short, unkempt hair and a light mustache. He was wearing a black jacket, black pants and black shoes.
When asked what he’d say to his attacker, Plasencia said, “I don’t think he’s in the right mind to talk to no one … I don’t think you can have a conversation with these kind of people.”
“He looked more high than anything,” he added. “I don’t think he was mentally ill because he knew what he was doing.”
The attack comes as police fight a slight uptick in assaults in the city’s subway system. As of Sunday, the city had seen 509 assaults on the rails this year, nine more than by this time last year.
Overall transit crime is down by 4% this year compared to last, with major decreases in robbery, bag snatching and pickpocketing, officials said.
Plasencia said the assault won’t keep him from riding the subway, but he will take certain precautions moving forward.
“I have to be double-checking where I’m standing, looking around more, paying more attention,” he said. “If I see anybody get beat up, I’m not gonna help nobody, I’m just gonna go. I believe that’s how New York is now. Nobody helps nobody.”
Anyone with information regarding Wednesday’s attack is asked to call Crime Stoppers at (800) 577-TIPS. All calls will be kept confidential.
