A 45-year-old man was killed during a caught-on-camera clash on southbound D train rumbling through the Bronx early Friday — the third subway homicide this year.
Police on Friday were still unclear as to whether the victim was shot or stabbed, NYPD brass said.
The trouble began around 4:50 a.m., shortly after the train left the Fordham Rd. station in the Fordham Heights section of the Bronx, NYPD’s transit chief Michael Kemper told reporters.
Two men and a woman who had just boarded the second car of the train got into an argument with the 45-year-old victim.
The verbal altercation that quickly turned physical as the train headed one stop south toward the 182-183rd Sts. station at Grand Concourse, Kemper said.
During the fight, the victim suffered a puncture wound to the chest.
EMS showed up at the station and rushed the victim to St. Barnabas Hospital, where he died.
The victim’s name was not immediately disclosed as cops track down family members.
Police sources told the Daily News that the victim, a Bronx resident, had 25 prior arrests including for drugs, rape, shoplifting, grand larceny and burglary. Records indicate that the victim served separate state prison stints.
Friday’s fatal altercation was captured by a video surveillance system onboard the train, Kemper said. Despite video footage, however, it remained unclear how the man was killed.
At first, police thought that the victim had been shot, but by mid-morning they were investigating the possibility that he had been stabbed.
“The injury sustained to our victim is consistent with either a gunshot wound or a puncture wound from a sharp object,” Kemper said. “That will be determined — the exact wound and cause of his death — by the medical examiner.”
A commuter on the train seated in another car told police that she didn’t hear anything that sounded like a gunshot, the police source said.
Three suspects wearing all black fled the train when it entered the 182-183rd Sts. station, cops said. No arrests have been made.
It was not immediately clear what sparked the argument, or whether the victim knew his assailants.
Cops put out photos from the train’s on-board surveillance system Friday afternoon showing the three suspects.
“This train station is usually copacetic,” said Anthony Santiago, 41, a regular rider of the D train. “It’s people that live in this neighborhood, and everyone gets along.”
But 53-year-old Bronx resident Tricia Linton told The News the violence did not surprise her.
“It’s all over the news, everywhere all over the city,” she said.
Friday’s death marked the third homicide in the subway system in two months.
On Feb. 12, six people were shot, one fatally, when a “chance encounter” between two rival street gangs on an uptown No. 4 train ended with three people pulling guns and opening fire at each other.
The shootout took place at the elevated Mount Eden Ave. station on Jerome Ave., just a mile away from Friday’s killing.
One of the bullets fired struck 35-year-old Mexican immigrant Obed Beltrán-Sánchez in the chest, prosecutors say. Beltrán-Sánchez died at St. Barnabas Hospital.
Five other people between 14 and 71 years old were wounded. Most of the victims were innocent commuters caught in the crossfire.
Two of the three shooters, all teenagers, were arrested. Cops were still looking for the third shooter, who is 15.
Last month, a 45-year-old Brooklyn dad was shot and killed when he tried to calm an argument between two other men on a No. 3 train.
Richard Henderson was shot in the back and shoulder when he tried to intervene in an argument over loud music.
It was not clear if Henderson was the intended target, and no arrests have been made in his killing.
Overall, crime was up on the subways for the month of January, NYPD and MTA brass said, but the incidents were trending downward after a flood of police officers added to the system.
“Anybody who’s been riding the last couple of weeks knows there are a lot more cops in the system, and already in February, overall crime is down.” MTA chair Janno Lieber said Friday.
“We’re not going to tell New Yorkers, ‘don’t be concerned when there’s a shooting,'” he added. “But the trajectory in crime is down versus last year for the month of February.”
Violent crime is on the rise. As of Sunday, felonious assaults were up 17% in the transit system compared to the same time last year, according to the most recently available data from the NYPD.
Reports of rape were down from last year, with one during this period last year and none so far this year.
There had been one murder on the subway system within the first six weeks of 2023. A total of five people were killed in the system last year.
Lieber said that roughly 1,000 cars in the subway system have surveillance cameras, and that the agency hopes to have most of the fleet equipped by the end of the year.
