Metro

Straphanger stabbed by panhandler says NYC subway is a disaster

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Published Aug. 22, 2022, 8:01 p.m. ET

A straphanger who was stabbed in the stomach while trying to stop an unruly panhandler from harassing riders near Rockefeller Center Monday slammed the city’s subway system over its soaring crime rates. 

“It sucks what’s happening,’’ Bruce Fuentes, 27, of Sunset Park told The Post while recovering at Weill Cornell Medical Center in Manhattan. “The subway system is a mess right now.’’

Fuentes, a food deliveryman, was riding home on a southbound B train after a few drinks at around 2 a.m. when an aggressive vagrant began demanding money from fellow straphangers, he said.

Paul Fuentes, the man who got stabbed at Rockefeller Center subway station while stopping another passenger from harassing people, said the city's subway system is a "mess."
Bruce Fuentes, the man who got stabbed near the Rockefeller Center subway station, said the city’s subway system is a “mess.” Robert Mecea

“[He was] pretty much trying to bother people for what he wanted,” Fuentes said. “I just told him, ‘Leave me alone, like just back off.’”

“He just became aggressive and that’s when I had to defend myself,” he said.

The crazed panhandler then pulled a knife, and plunged it into the left side of his gut near the 47th–50th Streets–Rockefeller Center station.

NYPD at the Rockefeller Center station after the stabbing on the B train on August 22, 2022.
NYPD at the Rockefeller Center station after the stabbing on the B train on August 22, 2022. Robert Mecea

“It got ugly. I didn’t realize I was stabbed ‘til I got off the train and saw the blood,” Fuentes said. “Thank God it wasn’t that deep.”

A jolt of adrenaline kept him from feeling the stab wound as blood soaked through his T-shirt, stunning onlookers.

“I didn’t feel it. I had a white shirt on and everybody was like, ‘Bro look down,’” he said.

Once off the train, an MTA worker called the police and he was rushed to a hospital. But amid the chaos, he lost his cellphone and bike, which he needs for his job.

“I’m very happy I’m OK, and that he hopefully didn’t hurt anyone else on that train,” he said.

Fuentes’ girlfriend, Karina Guzman, said she was rattled by the attack and frightened by the state of the city’s subway system.

“There’s a lot of crazy people now on the train,” said Guzman, 22. “It’s like you can just get stabbed for anything.”