Family Says Woman Hit By Train Was "Impulsive"

NYCsubway.org

The family of a woman fatally struck by a train Saturday morning is mourning her death. Shatonia Spencer, 23, was killed by a Manhattan-bound Q train at the Prospect Park station while she was attempting to cross the tracks. A station agent said she stopped to ask where to catch the trains to Manhattan, but went down the wrong stairs. Instead of going back up and crossing to the other side, she jumped onto the track bed and was attempting to scale the platform wall on the Manhattan-bound side when she was hit.

Her mother, Vanessa, told the Post, "Shatonia was always impulsive and never thought things through." Shatonia was the oldest of four siblings, and worked for the Parks Department. Her sister told the Daily News, "She's someone you can't forget. I love her."

Contact the author of this article or email tips@gothamist.com with further questions, comments or tips.

By Jaya Saxena in News on June 20, 2010 9:40 AM

Comments [rss]

r1b2

Cured of her impulsive nature.

eyekantspel

shatonia has to be one of the worst names for a kid ever.

Global Wombat

Stupid, if tragic. But mostly stupid.

Spirit of 76

She probably thought like too many people do that it would be easy to pull yourself back onto the platform. BMT platforms are over four feet from the track bed. For the average woman, that's above chest level. Even many men would have problems hauling themselves up onto a chest-level platform. The Post says her Facebook page exudes confidence. Not surprising, I guess. At that age, kids still think they're going to live forever.

Not a good picture for the article. It doesn't show anything about the subway station in question. This one isn't great from an technical standpoint, but it gives a much better idea of what she was trying to cross.

CaptainMXC

Yeah Gothamist, I vote for you to replace the pic with the one Spirit linked to.

Spirit of 76

Well, they changed it, but not to the picture I suggested. Now readers will think I'm crazy for saying the article photo didn't show anything. Interesting that Saxena chose a picture from NYCsubway.org. They use the same copyright policy as the woman on Flickr, so it's not like Gothamist is avoiding a possible infringement claim. And they don't link to the actual photo, so you'd have to scour the subway site to see a bigger version of that. Nice job, Gothamist.

Jen Chung

Hey, Spirit of 76, we changed the photo to the NYC Subway one because it was actually one that we debated posting earlier. No big conspiracy here!

Spirit of 76

I never wrote that there was a conspiracy theory. Simply that these are bad decisions on Gothamist's part. You change the photo without so much as a "Okay, we changed it," making previous commenters look like nutjobs. You post a shrunken, cropped version of a photo from NYCsubway.org but won't put a link to the full version, so anyone wanting to see more detail is screwed. Especially since the thumbnail really doesn't show much. People don't get a sense of what the girl was trying to cross. The picture is dominated by the train, which is obviously not the same train that hit her. Whereas a good picture of the subway station is, of course, the same station.

kazubes

No one cares stop crying

Spirit of 76

Ah, yes, another of your Twitter-like single-sentence nuggets of wisdom. Well, nuggets of something, anyway. Aren't you late to help Agent Chu write up a ticket for another funeral procession?