A 30-year-old man was slashed in the chin on a No. 3 subway in Brooklyn on Monday afternoon after getting into an argument with a man who poured hot coffee on his back — the eighth subway slashing so far this year, police sources said.
Steve Jean Baptiste was waiting on the train platform in East New York about noon when Stephen Brathwaite, 37, walked up to him, poured coffee on him and asked, “Want to fight?,” the sources said.
Both men proceeded to get onto the train at Junius Street, where Brathwaite allegedly pulled out a knife and slashed Baptiste’s chin, the sources said.
Brathwaite, of 901 Washington Ave., Brooklyn, was arrested at Utica Avenue, the sources said. He was charged with assault, menacing in the second degree, criminal possession of a weapon and harassment, the sources said. Baptiste was treated at Kings County Hospital.
The knifing marks the eighth on city subways so far this year, as compared to three in the same period last year. Police Commissioner Bill Bratton called the slashings an “aberration” on a radio show Monday.
The underground subway incidents this year include a 71-year-old Brooklyn grandma who was cut across the face by a stranger on Jan. 26 while on a D subway train in Lower Manhattan, and a 29-year-old woman who was slashed after she got into an argument with a man after they bumped into each other on the Atlantic-Ave-Barclays Center 3 train platform Jan. 26. Her attacker yelled, “I’ll chop you up right on this f—— train!”
There were also a series of recent stabbings above ground. Amanda Morris, 24, was slashed by a stranger in Chelsea Jan. 6 while on her way to work at Whole Foods, and Anthony Christopher Smith, 30, was cut by a stranger from ear to cheek Jan. 16 in the East Village, requiring 150 stitches.