A man at the Bronx subway station was hunted down by authorities after his disgusting act on a woman at the train station.
Frank Abrokwa, 37, was arrested and charged with forcible touching, menacing, disorderly conduct, and harassment, in connection with the stomach-churning attack. He was a homeless man with a lengthy arrest history.
A sickening video shows Abrokwa smearing human feces on a woman’s face in an unprovoked rush-hour attack inside a Bronx subway station. The Hispanic woman was sitting on the bench on the southbound platform at the East 241st Street station around 5:15 p.m. on February 21 when Abrokwa attacked her.
Abrokwa who was holding a black plastic bag began walking towards her, then without saying a word, he smashed the vile contents of the bag into her, and then smeared it on the back of her head. The woman was the latest victim of a troubling incident in New York City’s crime-plagued transit system.
Abrokwa took off after the attack, and cops were looking for him on Monday morning. The video released by the police offers a clear image of the suspect, who is seen wearing black pants, an oversized blue sweater, a ballcap over a durag, and carrying a large duffle bag slung over his shoulder.
The NYPD announced a reward of up to $3,500 for information leading to the assailant’s arrest. Mayor Eric Adams called the incident a “horrific experience for anyone to go through”. He said: “Human waste or someone spitting in your face, those are real signs of mental health issues. And we really must dig into how we’re dealing with these mental health issues.”
Sources said Abrokwa has 44 past arrests, including three from January and February for which he was released without bail.
On January 7, cops said that he attacked a 30-year-old stranger on a subway platform at 125th St. and Lenox Ave. He approached the man aggressively, yelling, “Hey! Hey!” as he repeatedly punched the man in the head.
On February 5, police said, he walked up to a 53-year-old man, also a stranger, at the Greyhound station at the Port Authority Bus Terminal in Midtown and punched him in the cheek.
And on February 22, he grabbed screwdrivers and other items from a Bronx hardware store, then pointed a screwdriver at an employee and said, “Call the police.”
In court Tuesday night, the prosecutor tried to convince the judge that Abrokwa should be held on $5,000 cash or $15,000 bond, arguing the attack was part of a pattern of behavior. But the judge said since she didn’t have depositions to review in his other arrests, she did not have reason to hold him.
However, Abrokwa did not leave the court a free man. The Daily News reported that Brooklyn detectives took him into custody as a suspect in a hate crime. It is the latest disturbing crime to happen in the subway system since the city and state jointly rolled out a new safety plan less than two weeks ago.
On Sunday, New York police arrested a man who allegedly beat a female city health worker with a hammer in a subway station in Queens. William Blount, 47, is accused of brutally assaulting Nina Rothschild, 57, at the Queens Plaza subway station on Thursday night.
Dr. Rothschild, an NYC Department of Health scientist, was kicked down a flight of stairs and struck repeatedly with a hammer at the Queens Plaza subway station, leaving her in a critical condition. She suffered a fractured skull.
The nauseating incident comes amid a frightening uptick in Big Apple subway crime. As part of the initiative, 1,000 police officers have been deployed on several subway lines to boost public safety.
Crimes keep occurring despite Adams implementing his Subway Safety Plan on February 18 that he says means “no more smoking, no more doing drugs, no more sleeping, no more barbecues on the subway system, and no more just doing whatever you want.”
There have been 320 crimes in the transit system this year, a 60 percent increase compared to the same period last year. Crime across the board is on the rise in New York, with murder, rape, robbery, assault, burglary, grand larceny, and hate crime rates all increasing.
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