Subway Harasser Nabbed, Thanks to Cell Pic

Earlier this week, a man allegedly groped a woman on a New York subway on the W line in Queens and she was able to take a cell phone picture of him, which then was widely advertised online.

Yesterday, the same man was at it again. The woman he was harassing believed she recognized him from the photo and called the police. The NYPD arrested him outside Bay 50th Street station in Brooklyn for disorderly conduct and marijuana possession, but he will likely be arraigned soon with sexual assault charges.

Apparently he has 30 prior arrests ranging from sexual assault to robbery. The fact that someone can accumulate so many arrests by the time he is 30 years old and still be loose in public is quite surprising to me. Could it be a typo in the article? THIRTY prior arrests?!

“I’m happy they caught him,” the 33-year-old ultra-sound technician [who was groped earlier in the week] told the Daily News. “I was proud I was so quick.”

“I think every woman should do the same thing, given the circumstances. It’s a very difficult position to be in. There’s no way to prepare yourself for it. But you have to be prepared.”

She said she just reacted to the situation.

“Everybody says I’m so heroic. I felt so nervous about the whole thing. I felt threatened and violated for a few seconds. It wasn’t very pleasant.”

She is proud of herself, though.”

Kudos to her, to the woman who recognized him, and to the NYPD for responding so quickly. With this harasser caught, a harasser in Delaware caught for following a jogger, and a Stop Street Harassment contributor reporting two harassers to their company in DC, it’s been a good week for catching & reporting street harassers – way to go everyone who was involved (minus the harassers)!

On a side note though, is the man in NY mentally stable? If he’s not, it’s a shame he’s not receiving help but instead is left to roam NYC, apparently assaulting and robbing a minimum of 32 people (including the latest two).