NEW YORK — A mentally ill man with a history of arrests in the subway, including for threatening an MTA employee with a pipe, has been grabbed by police again — this time for shoving a stranger onto the tracks, officials said Wednesday.
Calvin Wilson is accused of pushing the 26-year-old victim off the A/C platform at the Fulton Street station in Lower Manhattan about 3:40 p.m. Tuesday. The attack was unprovoked, officials said.
The victim managed to get back onto the platform before a train arrived in the station, suffering minor injuries to his right ankle, leg and hand, officials said.
Police did a quick search of the area and found Wilson, 38, above ground outside the station, Police Commissioner Dermot Shea said Wednesday.
Wilson faces assault and reckless endangerment charges and has been taken to Bellevue Hospital for a medical evaluation, officials said.
Shea said his transit officers have had multiple run-ins with Wilson over the years.
Incidents in which disturbed people are attacking commuters “are becoming too common,” Shea told NY1 Wednesday.
“We’ve encountered him multiple times,” Shea said. “We found him sleeping on the subway. We’ve brought him to a shelter multiple times. We arrested him in December for threatening an MTA employee with a pipe.”
“We have brought him as an emotionally disturbed person to the hospital multiple times,” Shea added. “There’s been multiple opportunities to get this individual help, because this individual clearly has issues. Where is this breaking apart?”
Shea feared more incidents like this could happen if police no longer respond to calls about emotionally disturbed individuals.
After several controversial incidents over the years in which police wounded or killed mentally ill suspects, the city has reassessed its approach in handling the hundreds of daily 911 calls involving the emotionally disturbed. In November, Mayor Bill de Blasio announced a pilot program aimed at replacing the NYPD with teams of mental health experts and EMS staffers to answer such calls.
No matter what is decided, Shea said more follow-through by city agencies need to be done to make sure mentally ill residents are getting the support they need.
“You can’t have it both ways,” he said. “It’s a little shortsighted when you just talk about police. We’re one cog in this wheel and we all need to be on the same page here. We’re saying take police out of mental health illness, and in appropriate circumstances we support that, but there’s got to be follow up.
“This person is a danger,” Shea said about Wilson. “Unfortunately, and he’s not alone.”
