yikes, subway incidence

abcnews.go.com/US/LegalCenter/wireStory鈥?/a>

yikes, subway incidence

I heard about this on the news this morning----there are some crazy people walking around, unbelievable.

yikes, subway incidence

Wow, frightening!

At the end, the story mentions:

';The attack came two weeks after a Boston man was charged with stabbing four people three of them tourists over a 13-hour period in the subway and the theater district in Manhattan.';

I never heard about this and I usually try to keep up with local NYC news (as best as I can being a Texan!) Why did it take place over a 13 hour period?

I just read that on the NYT web site - reads like a very bad movie!

I%26#39;ll never get used to random violence.

here%26#39;s the story about that 13-hour spree.

June 15, 2006, Thursday Late Edition - Final

Section A Page 1 Column 1 Desk: Metropolitan Desk Length: 1391 words

The New York Times

Suspect Seized In Train Attack And Rampage

By AL BAKER and KAREEM FAHIM; Reporting for this article was contributed by Sarah Garland, Kate Hammer, Andrew Jacobs, Leslie Kaufman, Colin Moynihan, Matthew Sweeney, Emily Vasquez and Michael Wilson.

The tourist from Texas was first, stabbed once in the chest on Tuesday while he sat with his girlfriend on a downtown C train. But he was not the last.

In the next 13 hours, the same assailant attacked repeatedly in Manhattan, the police said, plunging a knife into three more people: one man on a subway platform at Rockefeller Center, and two women from Montreal standing on a traffic island at the northern tip of Times Square. The authorities also believe the attacker terrorized workers at a late-night grocery store, menacing them with a knife and throwing a beer at them.

The attack on the women was witnessed by cabbies and a doorman at the W Hotel at Broadway and West 47th Street, the police and the cabbies said. They called 911 on cellphones as they followed the suspect across the street to a McDonald%26#39;s restaurant, they said.

The suspect was arrested without a struggle around 4:15 a.m. yesterday, the police said. He was identified by officials as Kenny Alexis, 20, a homeless man who has knocked around between New York and Boston.

All four victims survived, though the man from Texas and one of the Canadian women were in critical condition, and the police said there was no known motive for the attacks.

%26#39;%26#39;While it comes as little solace to the victims of such horrific attacks, the fact remains that the subway system has never been safer,%26#39;%26#39; Police Commissioner Raymond W. Kelly said, adding that crime in the subway system is down 26.7 percent from the comparable period last year. He also said, %26#39;%26#39;When you get four and a half million people a day into the system, every once in a while a really bizarre thing can happen.%26#39;%26#39;

At 1:30 p.m. on Tuesday, two hours before the first attack, police officers stopped Mr. Alexis when he allegedly tried to enter the subway station at 42nd Street and Eighth Avenue without paying. The officers checked for any outstanding warrants, and when they found none, they issued him a summons and let him go, the authorities said.

About 15 hours later, detectives had Mr. Alexis under arrest and were taking him to the Midtown North Precinct station house. There they began to get a picture of his life and how he had spent his most recent hours, partly from Mr. Alexis%26#39;s own words and partly from police records.

As of last night, the police had charged Mr. Alexis with two counts of second-degree assault in the attack on the two Canadian women, along with two counts of criminal possession of a weapon and one count of unlawful possession of marijuana. In the attack on the C train passenger, Christopher McCarthy, 21, he was charged with attempted murder and criminal possession of a weapon. In the deli incident, the police charged him with robbery.

Witnesses had also picked him out of lineups and identified him in the C train stabbing and the deli fracas. In addition, Mr. Kelly said, he admitted committing all four stabbings in interviews with detectives.

Mr. Alexis told the police he had no home. The authorities said he had been arrested twice in New York -- after he tried to board a subway in Harlem on Feb. 28 without paying the fare, and on April 25, after he tried to push his way past a ticket collector for a Chinatown bus headed to Atlantic City. He pleaded guilty in both cases, officials said.

Mr. Kelly said Mr. Alexis%26#39;s New York record included arrests with sealed records. Boston authorities said he had a criminal record there.

After he was questioned and charged, the police led Mr. Alexis out of the station house just before 9:30 p.m. to take him to Central Booking. Wearing jeans, a blue hospital smock and two diamond earrings, he was silent until he reached the police car, and then called out something unintelligible to reporters nearby.

The attack on the downtown C train occurred at 3:41 p.m. on Tuesday. The victims, a young couple from Houston -- Mr. McCarthy and Ganda Krisananuwatara, 20 -- were seated directly across from the attacker in the subway train%26#39;s last car, the police said. As it approached the 110th Street station, he leapt from his seat and stabbed Mr. McCarthy in the upper right chest with a knife with a three-and-a-half-inch blade.

Mr. McCarthy thought he had been punched, not stabbed.

%26#39;%26#39;I was like, %26#39;What just happened?%26#39; %26#39;%26#39; Ms. Krisananuwatara said yesterday. %26#39;%26#39;I looked over at my boyfriend. He said, %26#39;The guy just stabbed me.%26#39; %26#39;%26#39; The attacker walked away.

Mr. Kelly said the attacker had not made eye contact with the couple, and Mr. McCarthy%26#39;s father, Joseph McCarthy, who spoke to his son yesterday, said his son had deliberately avoided the man%26#39;s gaze.

Surgeons at St. Luke%26#39;s-Roosevelt Hospital Center spent the next few hours attending to Mr. McCarthy.

Two surgeons, Ray Wedderburn and Clifford Connery, said yesterday that Mr. McCarthy%26#39;s heart rate was elevated when he arrived, meaning he was in shock, though he was still able to speak to doctors. Roughly a pint of blood was drained from his chest before surgery, they said.

%26#39;%26#39;He%26#39;s extremely lucky, given the location of his injury,%26#39;%26#39; Dr. Wedderburn said.

In the recovery room, Mr. McCarthy%26#39;s father said he found his son weak but able to smile and squeeze his parents%26#39; hands. %26#39;%26#39;He said he was willing to give him whatever he needed, a camera if he wanted it, his wallet, whatever,%26#39;%26#39; Mr. McCarthy said. %26#39;%26#39;In spite of that, he said he still forgives him.%26#39;%26#39;

At about 3 a.m., a man who detectives believe was Mr. Alexis approached two men sitting on a bench on the southbound F train platform at 50th Street and Avenue of the Americas.

He demanded a cellphone from one of them, Ambrosio Castro, 30, of Brooklyn, and %26#39;%26#39;when the victim didn%26#39;t respond, Alexis stabbed him twice, once in the stomach and once in the chest,%26#39;%26#39; Mr. Kelly said. %26#39;%26#39;Like the victim in the C train attack, the victim on the F train platform initially thought he had been punched.%26#39;%26#39;

Again, the attacker walked away.

At 3:30 a.m. at the West Park Market, a delicatessen at 1802 Broadway near Columbus Circle, the police said, the attacker caused a commotion, waving a knife at workers, drinking water, tossing a beer at the workers, and taking a beer as he left.

Then, a half-hour later, four drivers leaning on their cabs at Broadway and 47th Street said the suspect came toward them, saying something unintelligible, and shook the hand of one driver, Samuel Dupiton, 45. They watched as he veered south across 47th Street.

Melanie Carrier, 22, and Audrey Perrier, 25, two students from Montreal, had left the nearby Edison Hotel and were crossing Broadway at West 47th Street when the attacker came at them from behind as they reached the traffic island at Duffy Square, Mr. Kelly said.

Mr. Kelly said Mr. Alexis stabbed the women in the back.

%26#39;%26#39;One of them fell down,%26#39;%26#39; Mr. Dupiton said. %26#39;%26#39;The other tried to give her a hand. They were crying,%26#39;%26#39; he said. He and the other drivers ran to the women, and one said, %26#39;%26#39;I got stabbed,%26#39;%26#39; Mr. Dupiton said. %26#39;%26#39;She showed me her hands with blood on them.%26#39;%26#39;

The women then got to the W hotel, at 1567 Broadway, where some employees came to their assistance. A doorman from the hotel and three or four of the cabbies ran to Broadway and saw Mr. Alexis standing inside the McDonald%26#39;s at 46th Street and Seventh Avenue, the police said. Officers arrived moments later and arrested him as he came out.

Mr. Castro was in critical but stable condition late yesterday at St. Vincent%26#39;s Hospital in Greenwich Village. Ms. Carrier underwent surgery late yesterday and was also in critical but stable condition at the same hospital. Ms. Perrier was released from the hospital.

On a seat in the subway car where Mr. McCarthy was attacked, forensic investigators lifted a palm print that the police said belonged to Mr. Alexis. A worker from the delicatessen identified a black and white knife Mr. Alexis was carrying when arrested as the one he brandished in the store.

Images: Photos: At top, Ganda Krisananuwatara with a picture of Christopher McCarthy, who was stabbed on the C train. Above, his parents, Joseph and Chi McCarthy, awaited word on his hospital surgery yesterday. (Photos by James Estrin/The New York Times); (Photo by Tina Fineberg for The New York Times) (pg. B6); The suspect, Kenny Alexis. (Photo by Erik Jacobs/ The New York Times)(pg. A1)

Chart/Map: %26#39;%26#39;A String of Stabbings in Manhattan%26#39;%26#39;

New York City Police Department gave this account of events:

1. 1:30 p.m. Tuesday -- Police issue Kenny Alexis a summons after he tries to enter a subway station for free.

2. 3:41 p.m. -- Mr. Alexis stabs Christopher McCarthy in the chest on the C train just before the 110th Street stop.

3. 3 a.m. Wednesday -- Mr. Alexis stabs Ambrosio Castro in the stomach and chest as Mr. Castro waits for the F train at Rockefeller Center.

4. About 3:30 a.m. -- Mr. Alexis stops in the West Park Market, drinks a bottle of water, waves a knife and leaves with a beer.

5. 4:15 a.m. -- Melanie Carrier and Audrey Perrier each are stabbed in the back by Mr. Alexis in Duffy Square soon after leaving the Edison Hotel.

6. Minutes later, Mr. Alexis is arrested outside a McDonald%26#39;s on 46th Street.

this scares me..

Crikey!!!!

Yes it is scary but the guy was an unstable nut who could have attacked anywhere - a high school, a post office, LA freeways, malls in Washington DC - you have no control over where some nut is going to strike next, and you can%26#39;t hide in your house because they are out there.

While events like this are certainly frightening, let%26#39;s not forget that maniacs are as likely to hold high positions in the government as stalk the subway.

You got that right!!!

I was there while the first stabbings were going on but we never felt unsafe. But then I live in a town where there are multiple shootings every night of the week.

I felt much safer in New York then I ever feel in Cincinnati!