Latest news with #JosephLynskey
New York Times
27-03-2025
- New York Times
16-Year-Old Is Charged With Hate Crimes in Gang Assault on Black Teen
A 16-year-old has been charged with several hate crimes in a gang attack on a Black teenager at a subway station this week, the police said. The attack happened at 8 a.m. Monday at the Coney Island-Stillwell Avenue station in Brooklyn, according to the police. The victim, 16, who has not been identified, was on his way to school when he was approached by a group of people, a police spokeswoman said. The group punched and kicked the boy, taunted him with racial slurs and removed one of his shoes, the spokeswoman said. On Wednesday the police arrested a 16-year-old boy in connection with the attack. He faces five criminal charges, including hate crime robbery and hate crime gang assault in the second degree. The police did not release the name or ethnicity of the boy who was charged. The case is being investigated by the Police Department's Hate Crimes Task Force. Hate crimes on the subway, in line with broader trends, are down. The number of hate crimes in the system dropped 32 percent in 2024 compared with the previous year, according to police statistics. Data shows that crime on the subway has declined overall, though perceptions of criminality remain persistent: Barely a majority of riders, 56 percent, said they felt safe on the subway, according to a survey released in January. That may be related to the increasingly random nature of subway crime and a series of high-profile violent episodes. The examples last year included a train conductor who was slashed late at night on an A train in Brooklyn in February. In December, at the same station in Coney Island where the teenager was attacked this week, Debrina Kawam, 57, died after being set on fire in a random early-morning attack on a parked train. Nine days later, a man pushed Joseph Lynskey onto the tracks in front of a train at the 18th Street subway station in Manhattan. He narrowly survived. People were pushed onto the tracks at least 25 times last year. (While riders might believe that young people are responsible for most violent crime, recent data finds that the average person charged with violence on the subway is 32 years old, compared with 24 nearly two decades ago.) Officials at the M.T.A. have acknowledged that the rise in random attacks is concerning. Last year 1,000 members of the National Guard began patrolling the subways, on orders from Gov. Kathy Hochul. They were supported by officers from the State Police and the transit authority. Police Commissioner Jessica Tisch also assigned more than 200 police officers to patrol platforms and subway cars, and reassigned hundreds more from administrative jobs to transit patrols, which allowed the department to place two officers aboard every train that runs overnight, Commissioner Tisch said.
Yahoo
11-02-2025
- Yahoo
'So fast': NY subway shove survivor captures commuter fears
Joseph Lynskey was quietly waiting for the New York subway on New Year's Eve when someone shoved him from behind onto the tracks as a train pulled into the station. Highly publicized horror stories like Lynskey's have had a chilling effect on many New Yorkers even as authorities say crime is down on the metro system and across the city. Lynskey survived because he fell into a deeper, recessed space under the train and between the tracks, and was not hit by the wheels but rather the undercarriage. "I knew instantly... that somebody had pushed me and tried to kill me," the music producer told AFP of the attack at the 18th Street subway station in the Chelsea neighborhood of Manhattan. "When I hit the tracks and I opened my eyes, the train was on top of me. It was so fast." He recalled thinking "I'm going to get hit by the train and I'm going to die." A 45-year-old adopted New Yorker, he has not been able to return to the subway, used by four million people daily who flock to the sprawling network of 472 stations and more than 660 miles of track, running day and night. When he looked around after falling onto the tracks, Lynskey recalled being just inches from the high-voltage rail that powers trains, and seeing his blood pooling on the rail bed. He was left with a fractured skull, four broken ribs and a ruptured spleen. "I knew that I had to remain calm. There was nobody on the platform answering my calls for help. For about 90 seconds, I was alone, screaming for help," he said. "A woman started answering me... a Good Samaritan. She asked me what my name was. She asked me if I could move. She asked me if I could wiggle my fingers and wiggle my toes to see if, I guess if I was paralyzed, and I think she was trying to keep me awake." Within minutes firefighters, police and subway workers arrived, with two firefighters retrieving him from the tracks, having been trained to do so just days before. Lynskey later met his rescuers to give them a hug and thank them properly. His rescue was captured on film and widely shared on social media, with rescuers expressing surprise that he was alive once he was lifted through the gap between two carriages. Lynskey still struggles to understand why his attacker, a 23-year-old man with criminal convictions and mental health issues, would want to harm him. He chooses instead to focus his attention on the kindness of strangers, like those who have written to him from around the world to express solidarity. - 'Back against the wall' - Last year 26 people were pushed or fell onto tracks, one of whom died, an increase of nine on 2023, police say. Cases like Lynskey's, though rare, attract a disproportionate share of headlines and public awareness. Another subway tragedy that shocked New Yorkers became front page news in May 2023 when Jordan Neely, an unhoused Michael Jackson impersonator who had struggled with psychiatric issues, was choked to death by a former US Marine, Daniel Penny. Penny was charged with murder despite claiming he acted in self-defense when Neely became agitated, and a jury acquitted him. Similarly shocking was the killing of a woman who was set alight by another passenger. One rider, Marissa Keary, 24, said that she had "definitely heightened" her vigilance when riding the metro. "If I have to wait, I'll have my back against the wall, and I'll also stand near another woman," she said. Lynskey said that the subway operator could do more to make passengers feel safe. "I think everyone deserves to feel safe when they go down into their commute," he said. Despite chronic issues with reliability and dirtiness, the subway remains the fastest way for the city's eight million people to crisscross the tightly packed urban jungle. In mid-January, authorities stepped up police patrols at stations and on trains, while also steeping up mental health outreach and erecting barriers on the edges of some platforms. Administrators said they hope that President Donald Trump does not scrap a $9 per car congestion charging scheme despite his opposition to the measure which will be used to fund a $65 billion subway overhaul bill, and the system's $48 billion debt pile. af-gw/dw
Yahoo
28-01-2025
- Yahoo
Subway shove survivor recalls how he cheated death after madman pushed him onto tracks
A man who was pushed into the path of an oncoming subway train in New York City recounted his harrowing tale in a new interview after he narrowly escaped death. Joseph Lynskey, 45, was standing on the platform of the 18th Street subway station in Manhattan, waiting for a train to take him to Brooklyn on the afternoon of Dec. 31. He had just had a celebratory lunch with friends and was headed home to get ready for a New Year's Eve party, he told Good Morning America's Eva Pilgrim. Lynskey then found himself in midair above the tracks. He saw the lights of an oncoming subway train as his life flashed before his eyes. "I just thought, 'I've been pushed, and I'm going to die,'" he told GMA. "It happened in a flash when I was midair. I knew that I had been pushed." Nyc Man Charged With Attempted Murder After Allegedly Shoving Commuter In Path Of Subway His head, and then his body, crashed into the ground between the tracks. While he had miraculously survived the surprise shove, he knew that he was not out of danger. Read On The Fox News App "So there's a third rail that runs along the entirety of the MTA system," Lynskey said. "It's the electrified rail. If you touch it at all, you will die immediately. You cannot move. Don't kick your feet. Don't struggle. You will get electrocuted. You will die." Four minutes later, Lynskey heard the welcome signs of approaching sirens, saying: "I closed my eyes because then I guess I felt kind of safe that help had arrived." Lynskey was gingerly removed from the tracks by the Fire Department of New York and rushed to Bellevue Hospital. He suffered from a fractured skull, four broken ribs and a ruptured spleen. "I can't thank all of them enough, and especially John and Jonathan for getting me out from underneath that one train," he said. He told Good Morning America that he immediately asked about his beloved dog, Leo. "He's 16. He's a dachshund. He's a rescue. So I looked at the firefighters and I said, 'I know I'm really, really hurt. I'm hurt really bad, but you need to help me get to my dog.'" Suspect Charged In Random Nyc Subway Shove: Who Is He? He was in the intensive care unit for five days. "The nursing staff there and the care team there were amazing," he said. "Truly amazing." The New Yorker shared that his brush with death taught him that life is short. "It's a powerful reminder that this can all be taken away from you at any moment, and you have to keep going. Life is too short," he shared. "And I'm going to keep going." Less than an hour after the attack, a suspect was in custody. He was identified as Kamel Hawkins, 23, of Brooklyn. Hawkins, according to the New York Police Department, has nine prior arrests. "I'm choosing not to focus on the anger or resentment or negativity," Lynskey said. "He's 23. I don't know much about him. I'm focusing on healing, recovering, getting myself back to my life." He has pleaded not guilty to second-degree attempted murder, assault and attempted assault, police article source: Subway shove survivor recalls how he cheated death after madman pushed him onto tracks
Fox News
28-01-2025
- General
- Fox News
Subway shove survivor recalls how he cheated death after madman pushed him onto tracks
A man who was pushed into the path of an oncoming subway train in New York City recounted his harrowing tale in a new interview after he narrowly escaped death. Joseph Lynskey, 45, was standing on the platform of the 18th Street subway station in Manhattan, waiting for a train to take him to Brooklyn on the afternoon of Dec. 31. He had just had a celebratory lunch with friends and was headed home to get ready for a New Year's Eve party, he told Good Morning America's Eva Pilgrim. Lynskey then found himself in midair above the tracks. He saw the lights of an oncoming subway train as his life flashed before his eyes. "I just thought, 'I've been pushed, and I'm going to die,'" he told GMA. "It happened in a flash when I was midair. I knew that I had been pushed." His head, and then his body, crashed into the ground between the tracks. While he had miraculously survived the surprise shove, he knew that he was not out of danger. "So there's a third rail that runs along the entirety of the MTA system," Lynskey said. "It's the electrified rail. If you touch it at all, you will die immediately. You cannot move. Don't kick your feet. Don't struggle. You will get electrocuted. You will die." Four minutes later, Lynskey heard the welcome signs of approaching sirens, saying: "I closed my eyes because then I guess I felt kind of safe that help had arrived." Lynskey was gingerly removed from the tracks by the Fire Department of New York and rushed to Bellevue Hospital. He suffered from a fractured skull, four broken ribs and a ruptured spleen. "I can't thank all of them enough, and especially John and Jonathan for getting me out from underneath that one train," he said. He told Good Morning America that he immediately asked about his beloved dog, Leo. "He's 16. He's a dachshund. He's a rescue. So I looked at the firefighters and I said, 'I know I'm really, really hurt. I'm hurt really bad, but you need to help me get to my dog.'" He was in the intensive care unit for five days. "The nursing staff there and the care team there were amazing," he said. "Truly amazing." The New Yorker shared that his brush with death taught him that life is short. "It's a powerful reminder that this can all be taken away from you at any moment, and you have to keep going. Life is too short," he shared. "And I'm going to keep going." My whole life has changed… Less than an hour after the attack, a suspect was in custody. He was identified as Kamel Hawkins, 23, of Brooklyn. Hawkins, according to the New York Police Department, has nine prior arrests. "I'm choosing not to focus on the anger or resentment or negativity," Lynskey said. "He's 23. I don't know much about him. I'm focusing on healing, recovering, getting myself back to my life." He has pleaded not guilty to second-degree attempted murder, assault and attempted assault, police said.
