New Jersey police capture man accused of shoving woman into moving NYC subway train

October 20, 2023 Associated Press

An A train of R-42 subway cars departs a station in Queens on its final ride before going into retirement. Photo: Paul Frangipane/Brooklyn Eagle

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A man accused of shoving a woman into the side of a moving New York City subway train was captured in New Jersey on Thursday, police said.

Sabir Jones, 39, was detained by Newark police and transferred to the U.S. Marshals Service, Newark Public Safety Director Fritz Fragé said in a written statement.

New York City police on Wednesday began searching for Jones after he was identified as the person who “forcibly shoved” the 30-year-old woman as she was standing on a subway platform in midtown Manhattan. The suspect fled the scene on foot, exiting the turnstiles.

The woman, who has not been identified, was hospitalized and listed in critical condition after sustaining head trauma.

“As the train was pulling out of the station she was pushed, causing her head to strike the moving train. The train departed the station and then she fell onto the roadbed, onto the tracks,” Chief of Transit NYPD Michael Kemper told reporters at briefing on Wednesday. Good Samaritans then pulled the woman off the tracks and called 911.

Kemper said police were able to identify Jones, who was known to police, from surveillance video that was distributed widely.

The attack occurred less than two years after consultant Michelle Go, 40, was pushed to her death in front of a subway train at the Times Square station, an apparently arbitrary crime that unnerved many New Yorkers who rely on the transit system.