Witnessed Violent Attack on NYC Subway, Taking Q's

Date: May 1st, 2016 5:33 PM
Author: taco taco

After dinner with friends last night I took the subway home by myself around 10. Sat down in the middle car (the one with the conductor) - it was reasonably filled with folks sitting down, but not crowded and nobody was standing. I sat next to a woman who was in her mid-30s or so, pretty and well dressed. She was by herself.

Suddenly a black guy (maybe late 40s, disheveled appearance) sitting directly across from the woman stood up and loudly, violently smashed his arm against the wall of the subway car and then with his other hand threw something on the floor of the subway, shattering it. Not sure what it was - something made of plastic. He then was babbling and walked to the other side of the subway car. As soon as he got there, he paced back towards my side.

Everyone on the subway was eyes-down, avoiding eye contact with the guy who was clearly out of his mind. As he walked past me, he leaned in and jabbed/hit/punched the woman next to me once in the face, and without saying anything afterwards just stood in the vestibule by the door closest to the conductor booth. Nobody in the car (including me) did anything - we were all frozen and seemingly terrified. Out of the corner of my eye, the woman seemed ok - she was still sitting in place. A thousand thoughts raced through my mind - should I attack the guy myself? Should I shout at him or for others to help me restrain him?

Moments later the doors opened and he ran out - I got out of my seat and asked the woman if she was ok, if she wanted me to get the conductor or get the police, etc. She was crying and in shock, but said no, she was ok. She didn't have any visible injuries. As we were talking the doors closed and the subway moved on. She got off at the next stop (she stopped crying at this point) and thanked me for asking her, kept insisting she didn't need anything.

Nobody else said anything to her, or to me after she got off the train. I've been thinking about it nonstop since, and though I wish I had beat the shit out of the guy, I think I did more or less the only thing I could. If he had kept wailing on her, it would have been a different calculation, but in this situation who knows what sort of weapon he could have had on him, or disease, and I wasn't going to be able to stop a psycho singlehandedly.

(http://www.autoadmit.com/thread.php?thread_id=3211172&forum_id=2#30385389)