The MTA staff had to control the ranting man themselves as a stark naked man produced a commotion on a crowded New York City train station with no sign of the police.
A man wearing only a right sock was seen sprawled on the ground at the Union Square station in downtown Manhattan as an MTA employee attempted to restrain him.
The man eventually manages to escape and starts to run erratically across the platform, around a column, and even performs a sort of freestyle breakdance across the floor in an effort to avoid the employees’ continued attempts to capture him.
The assembled group of commuters reacted with shock and amusement, with some laughing at the ridiculous scene and others reacting in horror as they swerved away from the man’s naked antics.
The man occasionally stumbles into the open doors of a crowded subway car that is waiting at the station, and screaming straphangers pour out onto the platform from another door until the man himself stumbles out.
In New York City’s subways, chaos has become the norm, and random acts of violence and depravity have left locals wondering what the police are doing to keep them safe.
Unknown when the nude man sparked a commotion at the Union Square station, his presence was only the most recent in a succession of heinous mishaps that plagued the subway in 2022.
An experienced JFK airport employee was brutally beaten on September 20 while commuting to work at the Howard Beach subway station in Queens.
Waheed Foster, 41, viciously punched and kicked Elizabeth Gomes, 33, in the head in an attack that was completely unprovoked, leaving her with nearly blindness in one eye. Foster had earlier thrown Gomes into a wall.
And on September 1, a 21-year-old visitor from St. Louis who was trying to find her way through the Times Square subway station was tricked and then raped by a man who had earlier offered to help her.
At around three in the morning, the victim was at the 42nd Street and Eighth Avenue station’s hub when her assailant arrived.
According to the NYPD, the man first started a discussion and offered to tour her about the station before bringing her to the end of a platform close to a tunnel and raping her.
Although the NYPD recorded an almost 12 percent decrease in killings in 2022, the New York Daily News reports that police saw an eight percent increase in 911 calls involving emotionally or mentally unstable persons.
Through the end of September, the NYPD received 131,199 such calls in total, an increase from 128,488 during the same time previous year (or nearly 500 calls per day).
Grand larceny has increased by 43%, while robberies have increased by 37%.
Former NYPD officer Eugene O’Donnell told the Daily News that “people appear to be a lot more fearful of random assaults.” And people’s fears are not necessarily based on reality. Despite being a cliché, it is true.
There is a chance that a few metro riders may be pushed into the rails. But it’s effective for passengers who feel like there’s no safety net,’ said O’Donnell, who is now a professor at the John Jay College of Criminal Justice in New York City.
After the troubled Frank James, 61, traveled to NYC and shot up a Brooklyn subway vehicle, injuring 10, Mayor Eric Adams promised to stop subway violence. However, many locals believe he has not kept this promise.
“Our city urgently needs assistance. After the Queens platform attack, Gomes stated, “We’re going through a lot here. I recalled hearing that there would be police officers stationed at stations, riding the trains, and in the tunnels. Particularly on the subway, according to Mayor Adams.
“There’s an incident in the subway every day,” she remarked. What happened to all of those police officers they said they would send to protect us? Like nobody is there to be found. I’m not sure I follow.
“Clearly, neither the government nor anyone else is doing anything for us.”