A New York man with a lengthy arrest record was arraigned Wednesday on attempted murder charges after police said he shoved a complete stranger in front of an oncoming subway train in Manhattan.
A Manhattan judge ordered Kamel Hawkins, 23, to be held without bail in the New Year’s Eve attack where a masked man pushed an unsuspecting victim down onto the tracks at the 18th Street station in Chelsea.
The New York Police Department said officers arrested Mr. Hawkins in Columbus Circle hours after they linked him to the caught-on-camera assault in which a male victim plunged toward the railing and disappeared under a passing train.
Miraculously, police said the 45-year-old man was in stable condition Tuesday night. Court records said the victim managed to escape the harrowing ordeal with a skull fracture, a ruptured spleen and four broken ribs.
A law enforcement official told the New York Post the victim was fortunate to fall into a trench near the rails and avoided more serious — and potentially fatal — injuries.
Mr. Hawkins has had multiple arrests in the past, but it’s unclear if prosecutors have secured any convictions against him.
Police said the suspect was arrested and charged in 2019 with body slamming a uniformed officer on Flushing Avenue. The cop suffered a back injury during the incident.
Mr. Hawkins also has an open assault, harassment and weapons case against him in Brooklyn from October.
Prosecutors said Wednesday they requested the suspect to be held on bail following his arrest last fall, but he was referred instead to a non-detention based program.
The attack is the latest violent incident to erupt on the city’s transit system that saw a 25-year-high in killings in 2024.
Police said one man was stabbed around 9:30 a.m. on New Year’s Day at a train stop in Harlem following an argument with his assailant. Less than an hour later, another man was stabbed in the back by an aggressor on a train in Greenwich Village.
Most shocking was the fiery killing of a homeless woman just days before Christmas.
The sleeping woman, identified as 57-year-old Debrina Kawam, was set on fire by a man who allegedly watched as the victim burned alive inside an idling subway car at Coney Island.
The suspect in that case, 33-year-old Sebastian Zapeta, is an illegal immigrant from Guatemala who told prosecutors he was too drunk to remember the Dec. 22 attack.
Mr. Zapeta, who had no prior criminal record, was previously deported by the Trump administration when he was caught crossing into Arizona in 2018. He had been in New York City since at least April 2023.
The same morning of Ms. Kawam’s killing, an elderly man stabbed and killed a thief who tried to swipe his belongings on a train in the Bronx.
Ms. Kawam’s killing marked the 11th recorded homicide on the subway last year, which was the most in over 25 years.
Crime overall on the rails was down 5% in 2024.
• Matt Delaney can be reached at mdelaney@washingtontimes.com.