A 20-year-old woman who wants to remain anonymous told WCBS-TV about her terrifying experience that began as she was heading to the Norwood Avenue subway station in Brooklyn on her way to her lifeguard job Sunday.
Suddenly a male — a complete stranger to the woman — began violating her.
‘What was going through my head was, like, ”I’m just not going to see my family again.” That was it, I was just not gonna see my family.’
“And he’s putting his arms around me, and I’m pushing him off of me, and I’m like, ‘I don’t know you,'” she told the station.
The woman added to WCBS that when she was on the platform waiting for her train, the male reappeared.
“He’s like, ‘Come on, let’s go.’ And I’m like, ‘I don’t know you,'” the woman recalled to the station. “He comes close to my face, and he’s like, ‘You don’t know me.'”
WCBS said the victim argued with her assailant, told him to get away — and then he grabbed her.
“When the train came, like I said, he got more aggressive, and that’s when he, like, bear-hugged me to the point where, like, my arms are restricted,” she recounted to the station. “The only thing he just kept saying was, ‘You’re mine now, you’re mine now, you’re coming with me, you’re coming with me.'”
A witness captured video of the attack, and in it the woman can be heard screaming.
Rondel Whitfield told WCBS in an initial story that he was on his way to church when he witnessed the attack in progress and soon got involved.
“I said, ‘Brother, please, just let the lady go. You know what I’m saying? Let the lady go.’ He’s like, ‘No.’ He just started being real barbaric. Like, I’ve never seen nothing like that in my life,” Whitfield recounted to the station.
The New York Post said “several men” gathered on the elevated platform and hollered at the attacker to let the woman go. The paper said the attacker allegedly shoved the woman to the ground and bear-hugged her as she tried to run away a second time, according to police and prosecutors.
“What was going through my head was, like, ‘I’m just not going to see my family again.’ That was it, I was just not gonna see my family,” the victim told WCBS in a subsequent interview. “That’s why I called my mom.”
The bystanders then pulled the victim away from her attacker, police told the Post, adding that they appeared to hit him as one of them yelled, “I’m gonna f**k you up!” Video shows men on top of the attacker punching and stomping him.
“Somebody try to tell you something, chill the f**k out?” one of the men is heard saying in the aftermath of the beatdown, the paper added. “Now you got it!”
The woman finally was able to escape and is seen in the clip running to the other end of the platform and crying on the phone with her mother, the Post said.
“She was just saying, ‘Mom, he’s trying to take me, he’s trying to take me,’ and I’m, like, trying to run to her as fast as I can,” the victim’s mother recounted to WCBS.
The victim noted to the station that she got to a Metropolitan Transportation Authority booth, and an MTA worker helped her get inside it for safety and then moved her into another room until police arrived.
“About the guys that stepped in, I’m very, very, very thankful because without them, I would not be home,” the victim recounted to the station.
Police said the victim complained of shoulder pain and suffered minor injuries to her stomach and arms, WCBS reported, adding that her mother said that while her daughter is traumatized, she’s been able to go to work.
“I’m very, very grateful for those that were there helping my daughter,” the mother told the station. “I am so, so, so, so grateful ’cause if it wasn’t for you guys, I wouldn’t have my child today.”
The video below is from the follow-up WCBS story and includes an interview with the victim.
Police have identified the suspect as 42-year-old Fredrick Marshall of Queens, WCBS said. Police told the station that the suspect had a knife and blackjack on him. A blackjack is frequently described as a leather stick weighted with lead that’s used for striking.
While Marshall has been charged with two counts of third-degree criminal possession of a weapon, third-degree assault, and second-degree harassment, the Brooklyn district attorney’s office told the station that the charges aren’t bail eligible, and Marshall has been on supervised release.
“It’s unacceptable,” the victim told the station in regard to the suspect being set free. “It’s really insane to me how they could just release somebody after they did that.”
BlazeTV host Auron MacIntyre had the following to say about the incident and its aftermath.
“Many people have asked ‘Where have all the good men gone? Why aren’t they protecting women?’ Everyone saw what happened to Daniel Penny for protecting his fellow subway passengers,” MacIntyre told Blaze News. “Now these men have stepped up and protected a defenseless woman, but her attacker is immediately out on the streets. This is anarcho-tyranny. The people of New York City are governed by disastrous progressive polices that get innocent people killed.”
The victim also told WCBS that her employer has been paying for her to take Ubers to work and that she wants to see more of a police presence at subway stations.
“I still haven’t fully processed what happened to me,” she added to WCBS.
The station said the victim is working on getting an order of protection from the DA’s office.
Editor’s note: This story has been edited after publication to include the date of the attack.
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Crime thwarted, Brooklyn, New york city, Subway train platform, Woman attacked, Male assaults woman, Good samaritans, Men to the rescue, Arrest, Supervised release, Bail reform, Not bail eligible, Crime
