The NYPD is looking for the suspect who deliberately pushed a man onto Subway tracks, killing him early Sunday (Nov. 17) morning. The victim, 61-year-old Wai Kuen Kwok, was a father of two. He and his wife were standing on the train platform just as a D train was barreling through the Bronx station at around 8:40 a.m.
Kwok and his wife were headed to Chinatown to shop for groceries. He was shoved by a man seen on surveillance camera wearing dark pants, white sneakers, and a leather jacket.
The Subway motorman saw the push but was unable to stop the train in time. Kwok was hit by the initial subway car as well as several others. His wife was uninjured in the incident.
Reports the New York Times:
“Push, push!” his stricken wife screamed, according to witnesses, uttering one of the few English words she knew.
An assailant fled up the stairs and out onto the street.
Nothing was stolen, the police said, nor did the smattering of early Sunday straphangers describe a prolonged confrontation between the victim, Wai Kuen Kwok, 61, and his assailant.
Instead, investigators came to believe as of late Sunday, that the attack was the sort that sows fear in many New York City subway riders: a random, purposeful and fatal shove at the platform’s edge by a stranger.
Before Sunday’s death in the Bronx, 49 people had been struck and killed by subway trains this year, according to a spokesman for the Metropolitan Transportation Authority, a number that includes suicides as well as accidental falls. But Mr. Kwok’s killing was the first time since late 2012 that a rider was deliberately shoved to his death by another.
The police released surveillance video of a man described by witnesses as the assailant, who remained at large as of Sunday evening. The video shows the man walking from the station exit, riding a local bus, the BX35, and smoking a cigarette on the sidewalk. Detectives believed he may live in the vicinity of the 167th Street station, where the attack took place.
Even without surveillance video of the push, the police said other evidence made clear that Mr. Kwok, who last worked for a kitchen supply company, had not fallen on the tracks by accident or jumped into the path of the train. The motorman on the southbound D train told detectives that the man’s body suddenly flew in front of the train, the police said.
Alfredo Brown, 36, who was in the station on his way to church on Sunday morning, said he heard “a commotion,” though other witnesses told the police that there did not appear to be any confrontation.
Kwok worked at a Brooklyn kitchen supply factory, according to his son. “His plan was to work and get his sons through school,” the son said.
Witnesses say the assailant fled the scene on a city bus.
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Photo: Screenshot
