Cops: Suspect implicates self in subway push death
Video shows police detaining a suspect in connection with the death of Ki-Suck Han, 58, who was hit by a train and killed after being pushed onto NYC subway tracks
NEW YORK Authorities said a suspect implicated himself Tuesday in the death of a New Yorker who was pushed onto subway tracks and photographed just before a train hit him -- an image that drew virulent criticism after it appeared on the front page of the New York Post.
Investigators recovered security video showing a man fitting the description of the suspect working with street vendors near Rockefeller Center, said New York Police Department spokesman Paul Browne.
Police detain suspect in NYC subway "fatal push"
"The individual we talked to made statements implicating himself in the incident," Browne said.
Witnesses told investigators they saw the suspect talking to himself Monday afternoon before he approached Ki-Suck Han at the Times Square station, got into an altercation with him and pushed him into the train's path.
Police took the man into custody Tuesday, but no charges are expected to be announced until Wednesday, Browne said. He has been identified as 30-year-old Naeem Davis, according to CBS station WCBS-TV in New York.
Han, 58, of Queens, died shortly after being struck. Police said he tried to climb a few feet to safety but got trapped between the train and the platform's edge.
Police sought information from hundreds of straphangers at the subway station and spent 20 minutes interviewing witness Leigh Weingus, WCBS-TV says.
"It was horrifying, it was terrible," she told the station, adding that people on the platform were yelling to stop the train because of the man on the tracks.
The Post published a photo on its front page Tuesday of Han with his head turned toward the train, his arms reaching up but unable to climb off the tracks in time. It was shot by freelance photographer R. Umar Abbasi, who was waiting to catch a train as the situation unfolded.
Abbasi said in an audio clip on the Post's website that he used the flash on his camera to try to warn the train driver that someone was on the tracks. He said he wasn't strong enough to lift Han.
Police question man in NYC subway killing
"I wanted to help the man, but I couldn't figure out how to help," Abbasi said. "It all happened so fast."
Emotional questions arose Tuesday over the published photograph of the helpless man standing before the oncoming train accompanied by a headline that read in part: "This man is about to die."
The moral issue among professional photojournalists in such situations is "to document or to assist," said Kenny Irby, an expert in the ethics of visual journalism at the Poynter Institute, a Florida-based nonprofit journalism school.
Other media outlets chimed in on the controversy, many questioning why the photograph had been taken and published.
"I'm sorry. Somebody's on the tracks. That's not going to help," said Al Roker on NBC's "Today" show as the photo was displayed.
CNN's Soledad O'Brien tweeted: "I think it's terribly disturbing -- imagine if that were your father or brother." Larry King reached out to followers on Twitter, asking whether the newspaper "went too far?"
The Post declined to share the photo with The Associated Press for distribution.
Subway pushes are feared but fairly unusual. Among the more high-profile cases was the January 1999 death of Kendra Webdale, who was shoved to her death by a former mental patient.
After that, the New York State legislature passed Kendra's Law, which lets mental health authorities supervise patients who live outside institutions to make sure they are taking their medications and aren't a threat to safety.
Mayor Michael Bloomberg said Tuesday he believed that, "In this case, it appeared to be a psychiatric problem."
The mayor said Han, "if I understand it, tried to break up a fight or something and paid for it with his life."
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And, if the photographer had rushed to help, would it have made a difference? He is close enough that it might have. Even if injured, perhaps the man would have survived? Now we'll never know.
This is a terribly tragic incident.
The question is, will it have a widely celebrated midnight release to a throng of gamers having camped overnight to get it...
There are thousands of mentally ill on the streets, and no way can all be monitored as to whether they took their meds or not, not even a few could be monitored. What needs to be done is to re-open the fedral/state supported mental instutions Regan closed in the 80s, one of the ways he was able to lower the federal budget. So many jobs would be created plus the streets would be safer. But, it will never happen.