Two people were stabbed in New York City’s Grand Central 42nd Street subway station on Christmas Eve in separate attacks.
Both victims were taken to hospital and are in stable condition following the attacks in the busy Midtown station, the NYPD confirmed.
At around 10.15p.m. on Tuesday, a 42-year-old man was knifed on his left wrist following a reported argument with the assailant on the stairs of the southbound entrance of the station.
The suspect fled up the stairs where he got into an argument with a woman, 26, and stabbed her in the neck near the station’s turnstiles, according to the New York Post, citing police and law enforcement sources.
Witnesses managed to alert police as the suspect fled up an escalator after the second attack and he was arrested at the scene.
Police recovered a knife, sources told the Post. No charges have been filed yet.
Graphic images from the scene showed blood on the floor as police guarded the area.
A person of interest has been taken into custody and the investigation remains ongoing, the NYPD confirmed in a statement to The Independent.
The suspect has been arrested previously for assaulting a police officer, criminal mischief and fare beating, sources told the Post.
The shocking incident follows the recent horrifying death of a woman on the city’s subway system after she was set alight.
Authorities are reportedly struggling to identify her due to the severity of her burns.
The woman was asleep on a stationary F train at the Coney Island-Stillwell Avenue subway station at 7:30 a.m. on Sunday when a man set her on fire in a reportedly random attack.
Police have struggled to pull fingerprints from the victim, leading to a delay in the identification process, prosecutors and sources also told the Post.
The man accused of her murder, Sebastian Zapeta-Calil, 33, appeared at an arraignment hearing in Brooklyn Criminal Court on Tuesday afternoon. The court heard the suspect used a shirt to fan the flames as the woman burned to death.
The suspect is due back in court on Friday.
The crime — and the graphic video of it that ricocheted across social media — deepened a growing sense of unease among some New Yorkers about the safety of the subway system.
Overall, according to authorities, crime is down in the transit system this year when compared to last year. Data from the Metropolitan Transportation Authority shwed a decline of six percent in major felanies between January and November of this year compared to 2023. Murders are on the up, however, with nine killings this year through November compared to five in the same period last year.
