Metro

Gal’s wild ‘goosed’ chase

It started like any other ride on the F train for Oraia Reid.

She stepped into a packed car in Park Slope, clutching a magazine and her purse, and sailed smoothly to the West Village, where she was set to give a speech about women’s rights against sexual assault.

Little did she know she’d be going there with a bit of firsthand experience.

Reid, 32 — who yesterday testified before a City Council committee about the subway groping epidemic — hopped off the train at West 4th Street and began climbing the crowded stairs to the street.

As she hustled along, she spotted a creepy man in a gray hoodie, white sneakers and sunglasses working his way down the stairs. The two were separated by a railing.

The moment he passed her, Reid felt a startling squeeze on her backside.

“Right after I realized what happened, I was outraged. I knew he did it,” she said of her ordeal that August weekend.

Reid spun around, but her groper was already booking down the stairs.

Then her instincts kicked in — as she refused to accept what she calls “everyday terrorism.”

“How dare you! How dare you touch me!” Reid screamed at the man in a bid to draw attention. “How could you touch a woman like that!”

“See that man over there? He just grabbed my ass! Someone stop him!” she yelled to the people at the bottom of the stairs, but to no avail.

Cowardly bystanders walked around her. Able men in the subway station did nothing.

“If I had the power to jump over that banister and tackle him, I would have,” she said. “My reaction was pure anger.”

The pervert then made a chilling move: At the base of the stairs, he turned around and gave her one last look-over.

Reid was enraged.

“I want to think that he was scared. I wanted him to think, ‘Holy crap, this woman is calling me out,’ ” she said. “But maybe that was what he wanted, to get someone aggravated.”

The perp then fled onto the subway platform, out of sight, leaving her feeling helpless and violated.

But her frustrations were only about to begin.

Determined not to let the incident go, she looked for an MTA station agent or police officer inside the station.

At best, she could give them information that might lead to the slimeball’s arrest. And at the very least, the NYPD would know there was a problem at the West 4th Street station.

She found a station agent, but the line to speak to him was “a mile long.” She wanted help immediately and moved on.

So for 25 more aggravating minutes, she searched the station for a transit cop. She was relieved when she finally found one — but that was short-lived.

“I’ve just been assaulted,” she told the officer. “He said, ‘What do you want me to do about this? The guy’s long gone,’ ” Reid said.

She said she then asked to file a police report.

The bored cop’s response was that Reid was “wasting his time.”

“He said, ‘This is a busy station, and I have other things to take care of,’ ” Reid said.

In the end, Reid gave up. She was stunned by the lack of help from bystanders and the reaction of law enforcement.

“They looked at me like a deer in the headlights,” she said.

Reid is a member of Holla Back, a project that asks women to take cellphone pics of their harassers in the street and on the subways to be posted online.

She is also the executive director of Right Rides, which organizes and educates women about the potential perils that await them on public transit.

The organization offers women free late-night rides home to make their commute safe, she said.

She didn’t recount her personal tale at yesterday’s City Council hearing, instead urging women to stand up for themselves against lewd behavior.

“As an adult, I learned to advocate for myself, and still the fact that people keep sexually assaulting women is incredibly disheartening,” she said.

That’s why she decided to yell at her assailant and draw attention to him, she said.

“I’m someone who was fighting for my rights, going out of my way to try to file a complaint,” she said.

Unfortunately, she said, nobody was listening.

tom.namako@nypost.com