Man speaks out after random stranger shoves him onto subway tracks in Brooklyn
CROWN HEIGHTS, Brooklyn (WABC) -- A man who was shoved onto subway tracks in Brooklyn by a total stranger shared his terrifying story Wednesday.
It is the epitome of an urban nightmare, but Pierre Augustin lived it this past Sunday.
"And the guy said I'm going to kill you," Augustin said. "And I told him, 'why would you kill me, I don't know you, you don't know me.'"
The Brooklyn accountant was waiting for a 2 train at President Street in Crown Heights, heading to work.
Without provocation, a man approached, chased him down the platform and shoved him onto the tracks.
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Augustin said that when he was down on the tracks, all he could remember was thinking that he was going to die.
Luckily, two fellow straphangers heaved Augustin back onto the platform before a train rolled in.
The assailant ran away, but police caught him Tuesday. It turns out, they know 44-year-old Corey Walcott very well.
"He has 19 prior arrests, including multiples for forcible touching, criminal possession of a controlled substance, assault, criminal sale of marijuana, fare evasion and criminal possession of a weapon," said Chief James Essig of the NYPD Detective Bureau.
It was precisely this type of incident New York City Mayor Eric Adams was trying to prevent last November, when he ordered police to remove emotionally disturbed homeless people from the subway, and take them to hospitals for treatment, before they hurt themselves or others.
Augustin says he saw no police presence in the station when he was assaulted, only his attacker and the two good Samaritans who may have saved his life.
"I'm not going in the subway at all," Augustin said.
The suspect would appear to be a textbook case of what the mayor was talking about when he unveiled his public safety plan related to emotionally disturbed people in the subway, but nothing stopped Walcott from this act of violence.
H was charged with assault.
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