Woman charged with murder in NY subway shove
Last Updated 9:37 p.m. ET
NEW YORK A woman who told police she shoved a man to his death off a subway platform into the path of a train because she has hated Muslims since Sept. 11 and thought he was one was charged Saturday with murder as a hate crime, prosecutors said.
Erika Menendez was charged in the death of Sunando Sen, who was crushed by a 7 train in Queens on Thursday night, the second time this month a commuter has died in such a nightmarish fashion.
Menendez, 31, was awaiting arraignment on the charge Saturday evening, Queens District Attorney Richard A. Brown said. She could face 25 years to life in prison if convicted. She was in custody and couldn't be reached for comment, and it was unclear if she had an attorney.
- Police ID man pushed to death at NY subway station
- Suspect's image released in latest NYC subway push death
- Another NYC "subway push" death
Menendez, who was arrested after a tip by a passer-by who saw her on a street and thought she looked like the woman in a surveillance video released by police, admitted shoving Sen, who was pushed from behind, authorities said.
In this image provided by the New York City Police Department, a composite sketch showing the woman believed to have pushed a man to his death in front of a subway train on Thursday, Dec. 27, 2012 is shown.
/ AP Photo/New York City Police Department"I pushed a Muslim off the train tracks because I hate Hindus and Muslims ever since 2001 when they put down the twin towers I've been beating them up," Menendez told police, according to the district attorney's office.
Sen was from India, but police said it was unclear if he was Muslim, Hindu or of some other faith. The 46-year-old lived in Queens and ran a printing shop. He was shoved from an elevated platform on the 7 train line, which connects Manhattan and Queens. Witnesses said a muttering woman rose from her seat on a platform bench and pushed him on the tracks as a train entered the station and then ran off.
The two had never met before, authorities said, and witnesses told police they hadn't interacted on the platform.
Police released a sketch and security camera video showing a woman running from the station where Sen was killed.
Menendez was arrested by police earlier Saturday after a passer-by on a Brooklyn street spotted her and called 911. Police responded, confirmed her identity and took her into custody, where she made statements implicating herself in the crime, police spokesman Paul Browne said.
The district attorney said such hateful remarks about Muslims and Hindus could not be tolerated.
"The defendant is accused of committing what is every subway commuter's worst nightmare," he said.
On Dec. 3, another man was pushed to his death in a Times Square subway station. A photo of the man clinging to the edge of the platform a split second before he was struck by a train was published on the front page of the New York Post, causing an uproar about whether the photographer, who was catching a train, or anyone else should have tried to help him.
A homeless man was arrested and charged with murder in that case. He claimed he acted in self-defense and is awaiting trial.
It's unclear whether anyone tried -- or could have tried -- to help Sen on Thursday.
Mayor Michael Bloomberg on Friday urged residents to keep Sen's death in perspective as he touted new historic lows in the city's annual homicide and shooting totals.
"It's a very tragic case, but what we want to focus on today is the overall safety in New York," Bloomberg told reporters following a police academy graduation.
But commuters still expressed concern over subway safety and shock about the arrest of Menendez on a hate crime charge.
"For someone to do something like that ... that's not the way we are made," said David Green, who was waiting for a train in Manhattan. "She needs help."
Green said he caught himself leaning over the subway platform's edge and realized maybe he shouldn't do that.
"It does make you more conscious," he said of the deaths.
Such subway deaths are rare, but other high-profile cases include the 1999 fatal shoving of aspiring screenwriter Kendra Webdale by a former psychiatric patient. That case led to a state law allowing for more supervision of mentally ill people living outside institutions.
Popular on CBSNews.com
- Massive tornado hits Okla. 60 Photos
- Mile-wide tornado rips through Oklahoma City area
- Children rescued from elementary school in Okla. 11 Photos
- Oklahoma tornado carves trail of destruction Play Video
- At least 51 dead after massive Okla. tornado 91 Comments
- Severe tornado tears through Oklahoma City suburb Play Video
- Oklahoma tornado kills at least 51, including 20 children
- Record Fla. Powerball winner can't remain anonymous
If Marcus Garvey, Dr. King, Malcolm X, Rosa Parks, Muhammad Ali and so many other heroes had known that they sacrificed and endured just so we could start acting just like the feral pigs who oppressed us, I wonder if they would have chosen the paths they did.
Still, it does take a strong mind to resist the effects of the agitprop Bush used to sucker us into his fake wars for profit, and keep us there for his two terms.
Many have not been so strong, as evidenced by some of the bagger posters here supporting a murderer.
The anti-Muslim hate campaign perpetrated by the Bush administration, trying to drum up support for his fake wars, aided and abetted by an all-too-compliant media, convinced many weak-minded people to hate others whose only crime was being of the same religion as those who brought down the WTC.
While the woman confessed guilt, the real criminals are those whose non-stop lying convinced so many ignorant people to hate other people whom they have never met, and who have have never done them harm.
The logic used by the anti-Muslim trolls on this thread could be just as easily applied to Christians, since Tim McVeigh was a "Christian", then all "Christians" must be evil and worthy of death.
No, it is not.
Such a lie as that is only what you have been told to think, so without checking for yourself, you swallow that spew warm from the tap, like the sucker you appear to be.
So you keep voting for war against the "boogieman", wearing your hate and ignorance as if it was some perverted badge of honor, and he profiteers laugh at you while they take your money. They don't even give you some K-Y jelly, and apparently you like it rough.
All the Abrahamic religions have verses in their texts which says that believers in other religions must be killed. You can try to quote cherry-picked phrases from Al Q'uran, (though I doubt you have ever seen the first page of one) and I can quote the same from the Bible and the Torah, (all three of which I have actually read) neither will reflect what the mainstream in any of the groups holds as true in modern times.
So since you share the same brainwashed ignorance as fed to you by the American Goebbels, then go do harm to someone you don't know, and only assume incorrectly to be a Muslim, as the woman in the story did.
You show the exact same stupidity as she, the only difference being the woman at least had the courage of her twisted convictions.
It's hideous enough she brutally murdered an innocent person, but her "reasoning" is idiotic: India is a majority Hindu nation and one of the biggest targets of terrorism in the world.
In other words, she attacked someone who is a member of a religion which is very often the victim, not the perpetrator, of terrorism.
Who started terrorism btw? Better check out Bush's and Cheney's agenda. You will be surprised.
Your conversation is an example of how sarcasm does not translate well to print. Carry on.
Guns don't kill people, people kill people...Platforms don't kill people, people kill people.