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Ignore Mamdani’s gaslighting — NYC subway violence is worse than you remember

When Decarlos Brown, Jr., fatally pierced 23-year-old Iryna Zarutska’s throat on a Charlotte, NC, commuter train last August, the horror made global news.

Last week’s fatal shoving of 76-year-old Ross Falzone down a flight of Manhattan subway steps commands equal outrage for what it says about the city’s steep decline in transit safety.

For decades, New York succeeded in keeping its transit system safe.

Recently, we’ve just given up on doing it.  

For any transit rider, watching the video of Falzone in the seconds before his murder conjures the same emotions video of Brown’s random attack on Zarutska evoked. 

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Crazed recidivist’s deadly subway shove: Letters to the Editor — May 12, 2026

We see Falzone, a retired teacher, confidently walking down Chelsea’s 18th Street toward the subway steps, backpack slung over his shoulders.  

He feels no danger; he appears to be reading a piece of paper.

Then another man, allegedly 32-year-old Rhamell Burke, steps into the frame, stretching his arms in one motion toward Falzone.

He catapults the older man forward, smashing Falzone’s head into the steps.  

We all like to think that we, streetwise and transit-wise, would never suffer such a fate. 

The footage reveals this to be self-delusion; neither Zarutska nor Falzone........

© New York Post