A 34-year-old homeless man was struck by gunfire on the Manhattan subway early Saturday morning, a day after Mayor Eric Adams and Gov. Kathy Hochul declared that the subway crime rate had dropped following a new security plan implemented in the fall.
The unidentified victim was allegedly shot in the abdomen and forearm in an altercation with another subject and his companion on a southbound N train as it was arriving at Canal Street and Broadway station at approximately 1:00 a.m. The victim was transported to Bellevue Hospital for treatment.
According to authorities, the individual was transported to Bellevue Hospital in stable condition.
Officials said the offender, believed to be in his 30s, left the station with a woman to an unknown address. No arrests have been made.
The suspect was wearing a mask with a skull that may have prompted a “What are you looking at?” he said before initiating violence, police sources stated.
The sources explained that the suspect pulled a gun from his pocket and fired a couple of shots, adding that when police showed up at the scene, there was a second subject lying on the ground but not moving. It was later revealed that he had hit his head when he ran off the train, the New York Post reported.
At a joint partition at the Fulton Transit Center in Lower Manhattan on Friday, Adams and Hochul unveiled NYPD figures showing subway crimes happened at a rate of 1.7 incidents per million riders in the first three weeks of 2023, down from 2.3 incidents per million in 2021 and 2022.