NEW YORK CITY is experiencing a worrying spate of knife crime on its subway train system so far this year, with three slashings in the last week alone.
Last night, two commuters were slashed within a space of 10 minutes, in two separate attacks.
At 9.38 pm, a 32-year-old man was slashed in the face by another man, while waiting for a train to Brooklyn at a station in the East Harlem neighbourhood, the New York Post reports.
The suspect fled on foot and has not been caught, while the victim was taken to hospital where he received stitches in his face.
And before 10 pm, a man wielding what appeared to have been a machete covered in clothes, aimed a series of disturbing threats at a 29-year-old woman, while travelling on the subway in the Bedford-Stuyvesant neighbourhood of Brooklyn.
Police sources told the New York Daily News that the suspect shouted:
I’ll chop you up right on this fucking train. The police aren’t here now. You’re trying to get help from the crowd. They can’t help you.
I can just chop you and they can’t do nothing.
As he left the train, the man allegedly swiped at the victim twice with the machete, making contact with her hand with the second attempt, and leaving her with minor cuts.
On Monday morning at 6.50 am, a 71-year-old woman was travelling on a northbound train in Manhattan, when the doors opened, and a man grabbed her face and slashed it with a razor blade.
The woman was left bleeding and taken to hospital, before being released later in the day.
Yesterday, the NYPD announced they had arrested and charged a 21-year-old man with the unprovoked attack.
And 10 days ago, a 30-year-old social worker was left hospitalised with a six-inch scar across his face, after being randomly attacked in the East Village in Lower Manhattan, during the middle of the day.
Anthony Christopher Smith said he was, out of nowhere, pushed against a wall by a man who shouted “Fuck off, I’m sick of this shit,” before cutting open his face with a knife.
No fewer than 10 reported incidents of slashing remain unsolved since October, according to the Daily News.
In all, there have been almost 300 knife attacks in New York City since the start of 2016 alone – a 15% increase from the same period last year, according to police.
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