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Four Swedish police officers took a break from their New York vacation to answer the call of duty Wednesday, breaking up an out-of-control fight between two homeless men on a Manhattan subway train.
“We thought maybe someone needed help,” said Samuel Kvarzell, 25, a rookie with the Stockholm Police Department.
When they made their way to the front of the train, they saw one homeless man beating the other senseless, as terrified straphangers fled the car into the Bleecker Street station.
“One of the guys was on top of the other guy, so we separated them,” said 25-year-old Markus Asberg, who recently joined the force in the city of Uppsala.
Asberg shielded the victim while Kvarzell and fellow cops Eric Jansberger and Erik Naslund restrained the aggressor, who was screaming and resisting the Nordic heroes.
The three cops eventually wrestled the man into submission and managed to apply an arm lock, while waiting for the NYPD to arrive.
“[The attacker] was making a lot of noise, yelling on the train at apparently no one,” said a witness who declined to give his name. “The other guy did nothing.”
Asberg said the victim didn’t make any real effort to defend himself and appeared to have been badly injured.
“He looked hurt; he was bleeding from the mouth,” he said. “I was trying to keep him calm.”
NYPD cops finally arrived and hauled the attacker away, but did not immediately release his identity.
“It was pretty routine,” said Jansberger, who downplayed their efforts. “We came just to make sure no one got hurt. We were trying to stop the fight.”
Asberg said he and his fellow cops were in desperate need of a beer before proceeding to the Broadway show.
“We came here for vacation; we’ve been here one day,” he said. “We’re no heroes, just tourists.”
