Last night, at the 21st Street Queensbridge F station in Queens, police say that a woman who was being harassed and followed by a group of men ultimately fatally stabbed one of the men before escaping on an F train. An MTA employee who saw the men told the Daily News, "Seven or eight of them were chasing the woman."
The News says that the woman was apparently surrounded by the men outside a restaurant near the station:
"The harassment, which may have included unwanted sexual advances toward the woman and grabbing, continued as she entered the subway station.
The woman broke free from the men and frantically ran down to the platform and hopped on an F train, with the thugs right behind.
"They tried to physically drag her off the train, but she fights back," one cop said.
The struggle continued as the group pulled her off the train and dragged her up the stairs to the mezzanine level.
At one point, the woman stabbed one of her attackers - identified by family as Thomas Winston, 29 - multiple times in the chest.
The woman then ran to the platform, where she managed to flee on a departing train. MTA employee Ricardo Josephs said, "They all jumped over the turnstiles after her. She got on the Queens [-bound F] train. They tried to grab her; they tried to hold the train - but she got away."
Winston was pronounced dead at Cornell Weill-New York Presbyterian Hospital. His relative told the Post, "I cried when they told me he was dead. Killed on Christmas Eve. It's such a shame." She said she was watching Winston's young daughter because Winston was living in a shelter near the subway station. The Post adds, "Police said the man had a long police record, most of it for drug offenses."
