Cops are hunting for this man after he allegedly yelled, “I will chop you up!” and attacked a women with a machete on a crowded Brooklyn subway train – the latest in a spate of slashings around the city, police sources said yesterday.
Natalie Lewis, 29, was assailant as she waited for the 3 train with her sister at around 9:30 p.m. Tuesday at the Atlantic Avenue-Barclays Center station, cops said.
After all three boarded, the man yelled, “I will chop you up on this train!”
“I’ll find your ass at home!” the man shouted at Lewis, who snapped photos of him as he taunted her, the sources said.
“The police aren’t here now. You’re trying to get help from the crowd. They can’t help you! I can just chop you and they can’t do nothing!” the man told Lewis, according to the sources.
He then reached into his black messenger bag and pulled out the 2-foot blade — covered in cloth — and slashed at Lewis, but missed her, sources said.
He shouted to her, “Why are you blocking the door?” sources said.
The man then sliced Lewis just before he fled the train at a nearby station. Lewis was treated for a 2-inch wound on her hand, but she did not need stitches, police said.
Police said the attacker is approximately 5-foot-9 and about 175 pounds.
Around the same time Tuesday night, a 32-year-old man, identified by police sources said Christopher Santiago, was slashed in the face while at a subway station near East 117th Street and Lexington Avenue in East Harlem, police said.
The knife-wielding assailant approached the victim around 9:40 p.m. and cut him. The victim, who sources say is not cooperating with cops, needed stitches at Harlem Hospital.
Meanwhile, Damon Knowles, 21, was arrested Tuesday night for slicing the face of 71-year-old Carmen Rivera on a D train during morning rush hour in the East Village on Monday.
Rivera was sitting on the train that was near Broadway-Lafayette around 7:15 a.m. when a man seated across from her got up and slashed her face, leaving her with a 4-inch gash.
“She wants justice done and she wants to talk to [the suspect] face to face to see why he did that,” said Rivera’s sister Amelia, 72, adding that her sister went back to work as a pattern maker the next day.
Two weeks ago, police arrested Matthew Jacobs, 26, for allegedly stabbing a man in the buttocks on Dec. 21 when the victim and his 13-year-old daughter were aboard an F train at the Forest Hills/71st Avenue station in Queens. Jacobs was nabbed on Jan. 12.
Stabbings and slashings in the city are up 14.85 percent, with 286 this year compared with 249 over the same period in 2015, police officials said.
Police Commissioner Bill Bratton said Wednesday, “We have from time to time a spike as these three slashing incidents . . . We push down on them and things return to a more normal rate.”
Meanwhile, a Bronx grand jury on Wednesday indicted Kari Bazemore on assault charges in the Dec. 31 slashing of a woman in Mott Haven. Bazemore also is charged with slashing a woman in Chelsea on Jan. 6.
Francis Salud, 28, also was indicted Wednesday for allegedly slicing a man in the face on Jan. 16 in the East Village.
Additional reporting by Tina Moore, Larry Celona and Jennifer Bain