Another subway slashing

NEW YORK (FOX 5 NY) - A No. 3 train rider in Brooklyn has become the latest victim in a rash of subway slashings across the city. Police say it happened Monday on a train in East New York.

This latest slashing is part of a disturbing trend. Stabbings and slashings have risen by nearly 15 percent so far this year. And once again the suspect appears to have been seriously disturbed.

A 37-year-old man allegedly slashed the face of his 30-year-old victim with a folding knife. The incident began on the Manhattan-bound 3 train platform at the Pennsylvania Avenue station in East New York, around 12:40 Monday afternoon.

Police say the suspect taunted the victim by throwing coffee on him, but the man tried to get away by getting on to another car. The apparently deranged suspect looked for him while the train was moving. But police from the transit bureau caught up to him and arrested him at Utica Avenue.

My police sources told me the suspect appeared so disturbed that even as they were arresting him, he was waving his arms wildly and trying to take off his shirt. Police Commissioner Bill Bratton calls the rash of stabbings an aberration and that the NYPD is dealing with the problem.