An off-duty MTA cleaner’s offhand complaint about a delayed Bronx subway train led to an argument with the repeat offender accused of stabbing him as their quarrel escalated, police sources said Tuesday.
“Where the hell is the train? Where the f— is the train?” the upset 47-year-old victim said out loud as he waited at the Pelham Parkway subway station at 6:10 a.m. on Thursday.
The complaint was overheard by the 52-year-old Jamar Banks, who was standing nearby on the platform, police sources said.
“You talking to me?” Banks asked before picking a fight and allegedly stabbing the cleaner in the back and armpit, the sources said.
After Banks ran off, medics took the worker to Jacobi Medical Center with a minor wound.
Less than 24 hours earlier, Banks allegedly knifed a 31-year-old man aboard an uptown No. 2 train at the 14th St. station in the West Village.
The victim suffered a punctured lung during the 9:40 a.m. attack on New Year’s Day, court papers reveal.
Banks walked up to the victim and started the argument, then pulled a large knife and stabbed the man in the back according to cops.
Banks was busted two days after police identified him as a suspect in the two stabbings and asked the public’s help tracking him down. He has more than 80 prior arrests on his record, a law enforcement source said.
Police charged him with assault and weapons possession for the pair of stabbings in transit.
A Manhattan Criminal Court judge ordered Banks held on $300,000 bail during a brief arraignment proceeding on Sunday. Bronx prosecutors handling the attack on the MTA cleaner are expected to bring their evidence to a grand jury before he’s indicted, officials said.
The NYPD saw a 5% drop in major crime in the subway system last year compared to 2023. But assaults in transit are up and the city has been rocked by a string of high-profile crimes in the subway recently, most notably the homeless woman fatally burned alive on a Coney Island train last month.
As a result, NYPD Commissioner Jessica Tisch announced she has assigned 200 additional cops to patrol the subways.
“We still must do more because people don’t feel safe in our subways,” Tisch said at a press conference at NYPD headquarters Monday.
“We still must do more because people don’t feel safe in our subways,” Tisch said at a press conference at NYPD headquarters Monday.