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Man With Sword Attacks Subway Rider — Who Was Charged in 2019 Subway Bomb Scare

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A man armed with a samurai sword menaced a New York City subway train packed with commuters Thursday morning, according to police.

It was just before 9:30 a.m. that police said the attacker hit a 29-year-old man with the wooden sheath of a samurai sword. The man, dressed in all black, boarded the train at the Fulton Street station in lower Manhattan just minutes earlier. Police released a surveillance photo of him going through the turnstiles, sword in hand.

According to witness accounts, the attacker was on the train when he took out what appeared to be a sword, still in its wooden sheath, and clobbered one of the riders on the head with it as terrified other commuters scrambled for cover.

“He just sort of like, very forcefully opens the two doors to the other train car behind us and just pulls out what looked to be a sword or something huge, and everybody just got up from our train car and, like, rushed to the front,” said Rebecca Strassberg, who was on the train.

Strassberg said that the attacker and another man were “engaging in some sort of combat” and the while situation happened very fast.

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“When we pulled up to chambers, I think that they were fighting for a little bit longer, and then they got off,” said Strassberg.

In an interesting twist, the victim who suffered head wounds was responsible for a subway scare of his own back in 2019. The victim was identified by police sources as Larry Griffin — the same person who police arrested three years ago for placing rice cookers at the Fulton Street station.

Griffin, who was taken to the hospital and treated for his injuries, was out on probation after serving a little more than a year in prison, according to the New York Daily News. He pleaded guilty in June 2020 to a felony charge of placing a false bomb, and was released Aug. 2021, the Daily News reported.

Griffin was expected to recover from his injuries. The attacker in Thursday’s incident ran off, and police are now searching for him.

An investigation is ongoing. It was also the second violent attack inside the subway system within a span of 12 hours. Police said that a 26-year-old was stabbed on a northbound 2 train at the Upper West Side’s 72nd Street around 11 p.m. Wednesday with what cops believe was a kitchen knife during an argument with another rider.

In that incident, the attacker pulled out the large knife and stabbed the 26-year-old in the leg and index finger, at which point the victim’s friend pepper-sprayed the suspect, who fled the train, according to officials.

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Source: NBC New York

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