Suspect arrested after video shows woman being thrown off a Bronx subway platform onto the tracks
By Rob Frehse, CNN
A 30-year-old man has been arrested after a video shows him allegedly grabbing a woman on a Bronx subway platform and brutally throwing her onto the subway tracks, the New York Police Department announced Tuesday.
Theodore Ellis faces multiple charges in connection with the attack, including attempted murder, assault, reckless endangerment and attempted assault, according to the criminal complaint by the Bronx District Attorney’s Office. He has pleaded not guilty.
The incident took place at about 4:40 p.m. at the Westchester Avenue/Jackson Avenue subway station, police said. Video released by police shows a man, alleged to be Ellis, grab a woman and throw her down onto the subway platform so forcefully that she falls over the edge of the platform and onto the tracks. The man in the video then walks out of view of the camera and across the subway platform.
During the investigation, Ellis allegedly confirmed to investigators that he was the man in the video, the complaint says.
“I didn’t mean to push her onto the tracks,” he said, per the complaint. “I was drinking.”
It is unclear if the two individuals knew each other.
The 52-year-old victim, who was not identified, was transported to a local hospital where she was recovering in stable condition, police said Tuesday. She suffered a broken collarbone, dislocated shoulder and a head contusion, the complaint says.
Ellis was arraigned Wednesday evening, when his bail was set at $150,000, according to the Bronx DA’s office. CNN has contacted the NYPD for more information about the incident. The Legal Aid Society, which is representing Ellis, declined to comment.
Sunday’s attack is the latest in a series of incidents in which people have been pushed or fallen onto the New York City subway tracks this year.
In January, the head of the city transit agency urged riders to stay away from the edge of the subway platforms. “I don’t want to tell people that they should stand on subway platforms and feel like they’re, you know, in threat of their lives,” Metropolitan Transit Authority Chair and CEO Janno Lieber told CNN affiliate WABC. “But everybody should stand away from the edge of the platform.”
Public confidence in the safety of New York’s subways has also been rattled in recent months following a spate of disturbing crimes, including a mass shooting in April in which a man opened fire on commuters inside a Brooklyn subway car and on the platform, hitting ten people.
New York Mayor Eric Adams acknowledged earlier this year that many riders do not feel safe in the city’s subways and he increased the number of police officers on subways and released a plan to address homelessness on the transit system.
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CNN’s Artemis Moshtaghian and Elizabeth Wolfe contributed to this report.
