NEW YORK (1010 WINS) – A homeless man who reportedly has more than 80 prior arrests was cuffed yet again Sunday for stabbing a subway rider and an MTA worker in unprovoked attacks in the transit system last week.
Jamar Banks, 52, faces charges of first-degree assault and third-degree criminal possession of a weapon for the back-to-back attacks on Wednesday and Thursday mornings.
According to police, he picked fights with his victims unprovoked before stabbing them in the back.
The first attack was around 9:40 a.m. Wednesday in the West Village. A rider was on a northbound 2 train at the 14th Street/Sixth Avenue station when a man started an argument with him, then stabbed him in the back with a knife, police said.
Less than 24 hours later in the Bronx, an off-duty MTA subway cleaner was attacked by a man who started a fight with him at the Pelham Parkway 5-line station and stabbed him in the back, according to police.
Both victims were hospitalized in stable condition.
Police eventually identified Banks as their suspect and tracked him down. He has over 80 prior arrests, the Daily News reported.
At a news conference Sunday, MTA CEO and Chair Janno Lieber said that while transit crime was down 12% in 2024 to 2019, "high-profile crimes that are alarming New Yorkers are real."
"We catch all of these maniacs. We need the criminal justice system to put them away," Lieber said.
Just last week, Gov Kathy Hochul announced she'd introduced bills in her budget proposal to change New York's involuntary commitment laws and Kendra's Law. The announcement came after several high-profile attacks in the subway, including the burning death of a woman in Coney Island and the unprovoked shoving of a man in Chelsea.
"The recent surge in violent crimes in our public transit system cannot continue — and we need to tackle this crisis head-on," the governor said.
