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Crime

Suspect In NYC Subway Shove, Murder Captured

Dec. 5, 2012 7:42am Jonathon M. Seidl

Suspect in Subway Shove Captured in New York City

Uniformed and plainclothes police officers stand outside a New York subway station after a man was killed after being pushed into the path of a train, Monday, Dec. 3, 2012. Credit: AP

NEW YORK (AP) — Authorities said a suspect has implicated himself in the death of a New York man who was pushed onto the tracks and photographed just before a train struck him – an image that set off an ethical debate after it appeared on the front page of the New York Post.

The suspect was taken into custody on Tuesday after investigators recovered security video that showed a man fitting the description of the suspect working with street vendors near Rockefeller Center, said New York Police Department spokesman Paul Browne on Tuesday.

“The individual we talked to made statements implicating himself in the incident,” Browne said.

No charges were immediately announced.

Witnesses told investigators they saw the suspect talking to himself Monday afternoon before he approached Ki-Suck Han at the Times Square station, got into an altercation with him and pushed him into the train’s path.

Han, 58, of Queens, died shortly after being struck. Police said he tried to climb a few feet to safety but got trapped between the train and the platform’s edge.

The Post published a photo on its front page Tuesday of Han with his head turned toward the train, his arms reaching up but unable to climb off the tracks in time. It was shot by freelance photographer R. Umar Abbasi, who was waiting to catch a train as the situation unfolded.

Abbasi said in an audio clip on the Post’s website that he used the flash on his camera to try to warn the train driver that someone was on the tracks. He said he wasn’t strong enough to lift Han.

“I wanted to help the man, but I couldn’t figure out how to help,” Abbasi said. “It all happened so fast.”

Ethical and emotional questions arose Tuesday over the published photograph of the helpless man standing before the oncoming train accompanied by the headline that read in part: “This man is about to die.”

The moral issue among professional photojournalists in such situations is “to document or to assist,” said Kenny Irby, an expert in the ethics of visual journalism at the Poynter Institute, a Florida-based nonprofit journalism school.

Other media outlets chimed in on the controversy, many questioning why the photograph had been taken and published.

“I’m sorry. Somebody’s on the tracks. That’s not going to help,” said Al Roker on NBC’s “Today” show as the photo was displayed.

Larry King reached out to followers on Twitter to ask: “Did the (at)nypost go too far?” CNN’s Soledad O’Brien tweeted: “I think it’s terribly disturbing – imagine if that were your father or brother.”

The Post declined to share the photo with The Associated Press for distribution.

Subway pushes are feared but fairly unusual. Among the more high-profile cases was the January 1999 death of Kendra Webdale, who was shoved to her death by a former mental patient.

After that, the Legislature passed Kendra’s Law, which lets mental health authorities supervise patients who live outside institutions to make sure they are taking their medications and aren’t a threat to safety.

Mayor Michael Bloomberg said Tuesday that he believed that “in this case, it appeared to be a psychiatric problem.”

The mayor said Han, “if I understand it, tried to break up a fight or something and paid for it with his life.”

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Associated Press writers Tom Hays and Tom McElroy contributed to this story.

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Comments (11)

jessix
Posted on December 5, 2012 at 10:38am
Nobody faults another for not risking his or her life to pull a person from the path of an oncoming train.

This photographer quickly evaluated the situation and realized he did not have the strength to pull a man up from the tracks to the safety of the platform. His problem is that he feels guilty for his inability to help.

Public scorn is directed at him because he obviously lied when he said he tried to stop the train with his camera flash. Wouldn’t it have made more sense for him to have run towards the train on the safe platform waving his arms to catch the engineer’s attention with the hope he could have slowed the train to a stop in time to avoid hitting the doomed man on the tracks?

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- TEOTWASWKI
  Posted on December 5, 2012 at 11:44am
  I do!! I fault the guy he wouldn’t have been pulling dead weight. the combined strength of the two could have pulled the man to saftey.
  
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- ViewPointtt
  Posted on December 5, 2012 at 11:01pm
  What is also interesting is that with gradual increased frequency, reports are being released without inclusion of the suspect’s ID/name. In many instances the suspect is already in custody and still the identification is withheld. In this instance, the name of the victim is not also withheld, but successfully vague. They first began releasing reports without a photo ID… now, the name is also often excluded, or unidentifiable . This creates the ideal environment for free reign to artificially generate the news to feed to the masses for the purpose of manipulating social consciousness; to cue the sheeple into one direction or the other… depending on what best suits the manipulative objective. After all, without a name/ID, reports cannot be validated… subsequently, the ulterior motive is easily and brilliantly accomplished.
  
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DougHuffman
Posted on December 5, 2012 at 10:06am
Statements implicating himself, innocent or guilty, is an object lesson – DO NOT TALK TO POLICE, TALK TO *Y*O*U*R* ATTORNEY. Anything you say will only be used against you by the police.

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bikerdogred1
Posted on December 5, 2012 at 8:41am
The real story here is that in 4 days they will know more about killer then 4 years of obama that’s the news media.Friends you can trust if you are a communist.SAD

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- barber2
  Posted on December 5, 2012 at 10:31am
  The hidden school records …
  
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LaBelle
Posted on December 5, 2012 at 8:40am
“This man is about to die.” What a horrible thing to print, can you imagine that poor mans family reading/seeing that, journalists will do anything for a story. I also so a caption under that NFL players murdered girlfriend. It said “baby mama”, I mean this is days after she is dead, where is the respect anymore.

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biohazard23
Posted on December 5, 2012 at 8:34am
Where’s Wile E. Coyote when you need him to secure some deserving POS to the tracks instead of the Road Runner?

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BetterInformed
Posted on December 5, 2012 at 8:21am
Stop a train with a flash ? That’s always my first thought when I see someone who needs help in a subway. BS

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blanco5
Posted on December 5, 2012 at 7:59am
Hmmmm….make money for a picture or help save a life???? MUST be a demonrat.

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Snowleopard {gallery of cat folks}
Posted on December 5, 2012 at 7:55am
Okay then, they have the guy – hopefully. In the case of the photo being taken, the photographer is the one who has to live with themselves for not helping and seeking the ‘shot for the day.’

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