A 48-year-old suspect, who reportedly has a lengthy rap sheet, was arrested Wednesday and charged with a hate crime for allegedly attacking an Asian man with a hammer at a New York City subway station.
Christian Jeffers, 48, is charged with assault, aggravated harassment, and menacing – all as hate crimes – and criminal possession of a weapon, WABC reported. As officers perp-walked Jeffers, who is transgender and a biological male, on Wednesday, a reporter asked him if he attacked the victim with a hammer, a video shared by the NYPD Detectives’ Endowment Association shows.
“Did he attack me first?” Jeffers asked before the reporter asked the question again.
“Did he push the transgender?” Jeffers responded.
The alleged attack occurred shortly after 9:15 p.m. Tuesday at the 14th Street station in Manhattan, according to WABC.
The 29-year-old victim told WNBC that “the assailant come out from the turnstile” and bumped into a person in front of him and his friend, who were on their way home from dinner. The victim said the assailant then intentionally bumped into him, though he tried to avoid the perp.
“He turned around, trying to get in my face, get in my face aggressively,” the 29-year-old told WNBC, noting that the perpetrator stepped on his shoes.
“Don’t you see me walking here? Don’t you have eyes? Open your eyes!'” the victim recalled the assailant saying. Jeffers allegedly brandished a hammer from his pocketbook and struck the 29-year-old on the left side of the head, WNBC reported.
Watch below:
“I just saw him reaching into a bag, pull something out — and I saw that,” the victim told WNBC of the hammer. “It happened too quick for me to react, I tried to put my hand up because I was expecting something but I just got hit regardless.”
The 29-year-old suffered a laceration and received treatment at Bellevue Hospital, the New York Post reported.
“It wasn’t painful,” he told the outlet. “I felt a lot of blood running down the side of my head. I was kind of just shocked and dazed a little bit and trying to process at that time.”
The suspect fled the scene, WABC reports.
Police said a transit officer spotted Jeffers Wednesday jumping a turnstile at another subway station on the 14th Street line just after 2:00 p.m. and subsequently arrested him, according to the New York Post. Police said a hammer was found in his bag.
Sources told WNBC that Jeffers has upwards of 30 prior arrests.
The incident follows another vicious subway hammer attack that took place on February 24 at the Queens Plaza Subway Station. William Blount, a 57-year-old homeless man, allegedly repeatedly bashed New York City Health Department scientist Dr. Nina Rothschild in the head, fracturing her skull, Breitbart News reported. He then made off with her purse, police said. Blount is charged with attempted murder, assault, and robbery.
Transit crime under Democratic Mayor Eric Adams’s watch has spiraled out of control in New York City. From January 1, the day Adams assumed office, through March 6, transit crime has seen an 81.4 percent increase compared to the same period in 2021, NYPD’s crime statistics show.
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