A 65-year-old MTA conductor doing platform duty was pushed to the tracks of the Hoyt-Schermerhorn subway station in Brooklyn Tuesday in what union reps described as "an unprovoked and cowardly attack by an apparently deranged individual."
The conductor struck his head onto the roadbed, according to union officials. The MTA said he suffered injuries to his neck, back and head and was taken conscious and alert to a hospital. He is expected to be OK.
Eric Loegel, TWU Local 100’s vice pPresident of RTO, representing conductors and train operators, said there was no argument between the suspect and the conductor prior to the shove. Police are still looking for the attacker.
“He just shoved the conductor off the platform onto the tracks and ran off," Loegel said. "This was an outrageous attack on a transit worker. A crazed assailant pushed one of our conductors onto live tracks. He is hurt but conscious right now. Thank God, he’s alive. Nobody deserves this, certainly not one of our front-line TWU members. I hope the suspect is caught fast and justice is served."
It was just one of at least three attacks on MTA workers within 24 hours. About 10 minutes after the conductor was shoved, a man allegedly walked up to a bus driver's window in Queens, verbally assaulted him and struck the window with his first, shattering it, MTA officials say. The Q56 bus had been at a bus stop at Jamaica Avenue and 132nd Street at the time. No injuries were reported.
The night before, a different male suspect allegedly punched a bus driver in the face several times in Manhattan.
New York City Transit Interim President Sarah Feinberg condemned the trio of attacks and called for more to be done to protect transit workers.
"Attacking a public servant who is working hard to keep New York moving during this time of uncertainty is heartbreaking, outrageous, and frankly, unfathomable," Feinberg said in a statement Tuesday. "Over the past 24 hours, three New York City Transit employees - workers who were simply doing their jobs, serving the public - were attacked, assaulted, threatened, and in one horrifying instance, pushed onto subway tracks. These reckless displays of violence are part of a troubling pattern we are seeing across our system. We have sounded the alarm on this disturbing trend to the NYPD a number of times. More needs to be done.”
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