'Babies on here': Man shot in the head with his own gun during brutal daytime battle on crowded NYC train



New York Gov. Kathy Hochul (D) recently deployed 750 National Guardsmen and 250 additional officers from state-controlled law enforcement agencies to help curb crime on New York City's sprawling subway system. The presence of soldiers was evidently not enough of a deterrent Thursday to prevent a bloodletting on a busy train in Brooklyn.

A fight caught on tape broke out on a northbound A Train in Brooklyn that left one man riddled with bullets and a crowd full of commuters cowering in fear.

NYPD Chief of Transit Michael Kemper indicated during a briefing that shortly after a 32-year-old man entered a crowded train around 4:45 p.m., a 36-year-old man confronted him.

The older male was described by multiple witnesses as being "aggressive and provocative towards the 32-year-old that just got on."

Footage of the incident appears to show a black male in a yellow baseball cap mutter to himself, then walk over to the younger man, threatening to beat him up. At one point, the apparent instigator states, "You think you're gonna beat up cops?"

Someone off camera can be heard saying, "He thinks you're a migrant. He thinks you're an immigrant."

"F*** your kind. F*** your race. F*** you," said the instigator.

The younger man stands up to face his apparent aggressor and squares off for a fight, prompting nearby riders to begin pressing toward the far side of the train.

"There's babies on here," one woman can be heard yelling as the men begin to circle a post with their fists at the ready.

After a brief exchange of blows, the instigator takes the advantage, pinning the 32-year-old against a seat.

A masked woman who was previously standing beside the 32-year-old appears to dig into her purse, then stab the instigator repeatedly in the back.

The instigator looks over at the woman and shouts, "Did you stab me?"

"I didn't do nothing," the masked woman responds.

A bystander attempts to de-escalate and separate the two fighters, but the instigator, whose lower back is bleeding, continues accusing the woman of stabbing him.

"It became physical again and at some point the 36-year-old removed a firearm from his jacket," said Kemper. "He then took that firearm, started walking toward the 32-year-old who was on the train, yelling at him, walking toward him in a menacing way, and it became physical again between the two."

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During this final physical confrontation, the young man managed to get a hold on the gun and allegedly fired multiple shots. Kemper indicated the firearm used in the scuffle was a "small semi-automatic, maybe a .32 or a .25."

As melee unfolded, the train pulled into Hoyt-Schermerhorn Streets station, where multiple police officers heard the shots, then rushed into action.

The 36-year-old man was taken to Brooklyn Methodist Hospital in critical condition. The 32-year-old man was in custody as of Thursday night.

Footage taken after shooting shows commuters taking cover and police on the scene with guns drawn.

Unfortunately, I was there when it happened. @ABC7NY
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Forbes indicated that crime on the transit system increased 13.1% between January and March as compared with the same period last year. There were 388 incidents between Jan. 1 and March 3, the majority of which were grand larceny and felony assault.

On March 3, a teenage girl was brutally attacked at the 168th Street Station and a 64-year-old man was kicked onto the subway tracks at Penn Station. Days earlier, Spectrum News reported a man was randomly slashed with a box cutter near Penn Station.

Richard Henderson, a 45-year-old crossing guard and father of three, was gunned down in January after trying to break up a fight on the subway in Brownsville.

Last month, Obed Beltran-Sanchez, a 35-year-old man with no permanent address, was slain and several others were injured in a rush-hour shooting resulting from a dispute between two groups of teenage thugs at the Mount Eden Avenue subway station.

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4-year-old boy assaulted in Times Square, his mother prevents the attacker from escaping



A 4-year-old boy was assaulted on Thursday in a random attack in Times Square, ABC-KABC reported.

Babacar Mbaye approached Rafaela Rivera as she was walking with her two children in Times Square around 3:20 p.m.

Ms. Rivera told KABC that she had just finished a photo shoot for her son, Angel, and their family opted to take advantage of the nice weather and go for a stroll in Times Square. During their walk, Ms. Rivera noticed a stranger — Mbaye — walking oddly towards them.

Ms. Rivera said, “I heard a smack like somebody got hit in the head with a bottle. I turn around and the baby is screaming, hollering, and crying.”

The NYPD say that the smack was caused by Mbaye swinging a closed fist at Ms. Rivera’s child and subsequently striking him in the head.

Ms. Rivera’s 4-year-old said, “The guy was walking weird and I was looking at him and I fell down on my head.”

Noticing her son’s assault, Ms. Rivera jumped into action and tried to apprehend the man who struck her child.

She said, “I was grabbing toward him and said, ‘Hey, you just hit my son.’ I grabbed him harder, and we both went down. He was on top of me, and I was not letting go.”

Ms. Rivera said that she was “outraged” over her son’s assault.

\u201cI was ticked off, I was outraged,\u201d says Rafaela Rivera after her son Angel, 4, was randomly punched in the head in Times Square. This was the wrong mama to mess with\u2026she went after her son\u2019s attacker. The story on @ABC7NY #nyc #wabc #ch7 #TimesSquarepic.twitter.com/oZG53jqT8P
— Naveen Dhaliwal (@Naveen Dhaliwal) 1645322048

The police arrived as Ms. Rivera held down her son’s assailant. Mbaye has been charged with assault and endangering the welfare of a child.

“I don’t think it would happen,” Ms. Rivera said, “We didn’t even take the subway because of everything going on in the subway. We took a cab.”

Mbaye told the police that he “drank a whole bottle of hand sanitizer” and that he “shouldn’t have done this.”

In early February, WNBC-TV reported that rates of violent crime “were up sharply year-over-year.” WNBC said that rape was up 27%, robbery was up 33%, and felony assault was up by roughly 12%.

Crime in New York’s transit system is up by 70%.

Muggings, beatings, and murders are becoming increasingly common in New York City’s subway stations.

This increase in violence throughout New York City’s transit system has led to Eric Adams, the Mayor of New York City, vowing to remove homeless people from train cars and subway stations.

Adams referred to homelessness as a “cancerous sore” and said that the city will begin to deploy more police and mental health workers throughout the city’s transit network.

Adam’s plan to remove homeless people from the subway system could help decrease the number of violent crimes committed along and throughout the city’s vast railway network.

However, as reported by the New York Post, 43% of the people who are arrested in New York City and let go without bail go on to be rearrested.

The Post reported that Mbaye, the man who assaulted a 4-year-old child, has three open misdemeanors for “assaulting strangers” and 16 prior misdemeanor convictions.

The judge presiding over the case ordered his bail to be set at $30,000.