Marine stabbed in his hand while trying to protect woman from subway purse snatchers
PELHAM PARKWAY, the Bronx (WABC) -- A man who was stabbed in his hand while trying to intervene in a dispute at a Bronx subway station is angry that crime continues to impact the lives of everyday New Yorkers.
As a Marine, Alfredo Troché Jr. took an oath to protect his country -- but he didn't think he'd have to do it in his own back yard.
Troché was on his way back home at the subway station at Pelham Parkway and White Plains Road 1 a.m. Thursday when he saw two men harassing a woman in the mezzanine.
"I seen this lady screaming and I seen like shadows, and when I looked, this guy was pulling out box cutters going to cut the straps out of a purse," he said. "That's when I just... jumped on the door and I started punching, pounding them."
Police say the men ran and sped away in a white car.
Troché was bleeding profusely from a stab wound on his hand and made it to a bus stop more than a mile away before he realized he needed medical help.
The 53-year-old victim was taken to Montefiore Medical Center where he was said to be stable.
No arrests have been made.
This encounter comes just hours after Gov. Kathy Hochul announced that 1,000 National Guardsmen and state police officers will flood the subway system to prevent violence.
Troché says the lack of action by the state and city coupled with bail-reform laws are leaving people, like himself, with no choice but to intervene.
"We're tired, I shouldn't see an old lady or an innocent man get kicked in the back, a conductor get cut in the neck. Since COVID this world has gone bonkers," he said.
On Wednesday evening, the NYPD posted bag checkpoints at several subway stations. The mayor's office says bag screening will ramp up at over 130 subway stations next week.
Experts say Hochul's deployment of the National Guard is not sustainable long term, likely only a few months -- just in time for when congestion pricing goes into effect.
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