A 20-year-old man was slashed with a box cutter during a fight with an older man on a subway train entering Penn Station, MTA officials said Saturday.
The attack comes just a day after Gov. Hochul vowed to put police on every overnight subway train in the system.
The two men were on the No. 2 train entering the Midtown transit hub at about 8 p.m. Friday when the two men got into an argument with each other, officials said.
The disagreement quickly became heated and the 20-year-old man punched his 45-year-old rival in the face, according to an MTA spokesman.
The older man quickly retaliated and whipped out a box cutter, slashing his victim in the shoulder and hand as the train entered the station and the fight continued onto the platform.
MTA police quickly arrested both men. Criminal charges were pending Saturday.
Cops temporarily shut down train service as they took the two men into custody and rendered medical aid.
“They shut down the whole thing,” an MTA cleaner told the Daily News Friday night. “One guy stabbed the other one and the police arrested him. There was blood all over. It was a lot to clean up.”
The box cutter was recovered on the floor of the subway car.
The bloody fight occurred a day after Gov. Hochul announced she was going to put two police officers on every overnight subway train starting Monday.
The plan, which Hochul first announced in her State of the State address earlier this week, is meant to bolster the visibility of law enforcement officers on city mass transit for the next six months.
“People want to see police officers on the trains and in the stations,” she told reporters on Thursday.
Starting Monday, the first phase of the plan will roll out overnight from 9 p.m. to 5 a.m., when 100 officers will be deployed to patrol the trains.
“Additional phases will be rolled out over the coming weeks with the expectation that the full operation will be complete by the end of the month,” said an NYPD spokesperson. “This is a massive undertaking that involves specialized training as well as logistics and resource management. We appreciate the governor’s support in keeping New Yorkers safe.”
The surge comes on top of 1,000 National Guard soldiers deployed to the system by Hochul last year, plus at least 250 state police. Unlike state and local police, the National Guard has no authority to make arrests in the subway system.
Ten people were murdered in the New York City subway system last year — including the recent, random and gruesome immolation of a homeless New Jersey woman asleep on a Brooklyn train — up from five murders in 2023.
