A hearth inspector who was knifed within the again by a stranger on a subway platform Friday lamented to The Put up that different straphangers merely walked previous him as he was being attacked.
“In America, folks don’t care about different folks,” stated Taofeek Ajisegiri, 54, who immigrated to the US from Lagos, Nigeria, six years in the past.
“They had been strolling, they had been trying away,” he stated of the three or 4 different riders who had been close to him as he was being assaulted by a vicious nut on the A-B-C-D platform at Harlem’s 125th Road station in Manhattan round 4:25 a.m.
“Individuals don’t wish to contain themself with anyone,” Ajisegiri stated.
“It’s not like my nation,” he stated. “If one thing occurred on the road in my nation, folks would run to you and say, ‘What’s occurred? What’s occurred?’
“On this nation folks look away and go their very own manner.”
The sufferer, who's from Brooklyn and works as a hearth inspector for a non-public firm, stated he was on his manner to purchase a MetroCard when he was attacked.
He wanted 12 stitches to shut the wound on his again.
His sister, Olayinka Olanipekun, stated she was upset nobody got here to her brother’s assist.
“Trying away is just not good,” stated Olanipekyn, 53.
“When the incident occurred, if the three folks round assisted him, possibly they might have been capable of catch the man,” she stated.
“I believe the man knew that no person was going to come back to his rescue, that’s why he did what he did. If one thing is occurring round us, we must always assist one another out.”
Ajisegiri stated that earlier than he was attacked, he noticed his assailant urinating on the platform however didn’t change phrases with him.
“I’m strolling on the platform, and I noticed the man stand behind that wall, and he’s peeing. I don’t need it to the touch me,” Ajisegiri stated. “He walks to me, and he says, ‘What’s occurring? Why are you taking a look at me? Cease speaking to me and cease harassing me.’ I don’t reply as a result of I've nothing to say.”
That’s when the assailant stabbed him within the again with out a phrase, he stated.
“I adopted him, yelling, ‘Police! Police!’ however no person assisted me,” the shaken Ajisegiri stated.
There have been no police round on the time of the incident, the sufferer stated.
He stated he tried to chase to the attacker earlier than the person tried to stab him once more.
“I can’t imagine this occurred to me,” he stated. “I hear about it, however I can’t imagine it will occur to me.”
His message to Mayor Eric Adams was to “maintain working [to help] the folks which might be disturbed” within the subways as a result of “it’s too rampant presently of evening.
“I don’t assume it’s solely about placing extra cops on the practice,” Ajisegiri stated. “[Subway criminals] are doing the satan’s work. They know the way they’re taking part in the sport, they transfer across the practice station. If the cop is on one facet, they transfer to the opposite facet.”
The assault on the person was just one of town’s newest violent underground assaults.
Hours after Ajisegiri was stabbed, a 20-year-old lady was slashed on an A Practice in Higher Manhattan.
The sufferer stated her sister had AirDropped one thing to passengers on the practice and that a man confronted her over it. The person hit the sister, and a battle ensued, throughout which the girl was slashed on her facet.
She instructed The Put up on Friday from her Inwood house that town might be doing extra to make sure riders’ security, together with involving cops.
“So far as being near the practice stations at the least, having officers on the practice,” stated the sufferer, who requested to not be recognized. “The ambulance responded on scene, they got here instantly. Police dealt with the state of affairs very nicely.
“However the cops had been known as, they weren’t current round within the space. They might undoubtedly be patrolling extra and round this space extra.”
Further reporting by Joe Marino
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