NYC subway beating suspect Norton Blake is arrested after ‘hitting 60-year-old woman with her own cane 50 times’ – after cops initially let him walk

The ex-con who allegedly beat a 60-year-old woman with her own baton on the New York City Subway has reportedly been arrested — after officers initially let him go after he gave them a false name.

The suspect, identified as 43-year-old Norton Blake, was apprehended by the NYPD’s Warrant Squad around 6:30 a.m. Wednesday, local law enforcement sources told The New York Post — five days after the filmed attack on Bronx resident Laurell Reynolds.

It happened in the early hours of Friday and saw Reynolds stripped of her cane by a huge suspect, believed to be Blake.

A beating of more than fifty lashes followed, eventually knocking the disabled woman to the ground. Footage of the attack then went viral, sparking a community-wide search for the man responsible.

After four days of searching, police named Blake – a career criminal with nine priors – as a suspect. Initially, officers said they received a phone call reporting the assault, but that the suspect fled the scene “to parts unknown.”

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Hours later, the head of the NYC Transit Authority revealed that an MTA employee was the one who filmed the clip, calling the city’s Rail Control Center, which in turn called 911. Police responded to the scene before letting the suspect walk. .

This is reported by police sources The mail that ohofficers who asked Blake to let him go without arrest — or without realizing his allegedly decades-long record — after he and the victim gave conflicting accounts of the attack.

The manner in which officers handled the suspect at the scene is now under investigation, sources further told the newspaper — though an NYPD spokesperson did not immediately comment when DailyMail.com was reached both Wednesday and Tuesday.

It is unclear whether police viewed bystander video of the attack before or after they released Blake.

The victim Reynolds, who uses a walker, expressed outrage, telling the Post in a bedside interview, “They should have arrested him!”

‘I don’t deserve that. Not at all, not at all… and I pray to God that this doesn’t happen to anyone else,” Reynolds said. “They need to keep that man off the street.”

NYPD Chief of Transit Michael Kemper named Blake the prime suspect in the attack at a news conference Tuesday.

Blake remained at large Tuesday night, a law enforcement source confirmed to DailyMail.com.

Within days of the attack, the two-minute clip of the assault went viral, sparking a video search for the man after he successfully fled before police arrived.

The attack occurred just before 4:30 a.m. Friday, as Reynolds — who lives in the Bronx — made his way through the subway station in Harlem.

In comments to The mailReynolds’ daughter revealed she only learned of the attack after seeing it circulated online.

“Now I know,” 41-year-old Lashanne Reese recalled on Tuesday realizing what had happened to her mother — after questioning why she never showed up to a party she had on Saturday.

Of the poignant images—which raise eyebrows because of its convenient location from a subway toll booth—she said, “I’m hurt, it hurts.”

“That man could have killed my mother,” she added, sometimes crying in fits of apparent frustration at how things had been handled. “You all did nothing. I have a problem with that.’

As for Blake, who has a laundry list of offenders ranging from drug charges to two separate assaults on police officers, insiders told the Post he gave officers a false name in a successful attempt to get away.

Kemper assured reporters after revealing that Blake was their only suspect.

“We’re looking for him and I’m pretty sure he’ll be arrested and charged with that assault shortly.”

As to how the altercation went, the top agent said he and others believed the suspect and Reynolds had been arguing when the victim was walking up one of the station’s stairs.

“A witness[said]that they were arguing about something that may have fallen,” Kemper said, claiming it was still unclear whether the two knew each other.

“Maybe he helped her carry something up the stairs, and maybe something fell, and they got into a fight,” he theorized.

The dispute quickly spiraled into one of the most horrific attacks on the system in recent history, with Blake Reynolds reportedly punched in the head, abdomen, leg, arms, back and hands.

The beating — which began after Blake ripped the woman’s cane from her hands — continued as she fell to the ground, leaving thousands of people across the city and country in shock at its prolonged and relentless nature.

Law enforcement sources went on to tell the Post that while on the run, Blake is well known to the NYPD — and has previous arrests for drug possession, assault, trespass, resisting arrest, tampering with evidence and possession of stolen property.

In two of the crimes, the suspect punched other NYPD officers, insiders said: one in 2017 while resisting arrest and another in 2003, punching a cop in the face while off duty.

Reese told the Post she wasn’t sure why her mother was in Harlem at the time of the attack, complaining that no one on the platform stepped in to help when she was attacked.

“We are supposed to be a loving, caring community. It is community unity. If we put unity into it, we get a whole community,” Reese said.

“That they don’t . . . that’s why it’s happening everywhere,” she continued. “This is happening everywhere because there is no unity in our community.”

She tearfully said about the suspect: He needs help – No, he shouldn’t be on the street.

“He just attacked my mother and hit her with a stick. He doesn’t belong on the street.

Subway crime has been labeled one of the city’s biggest crises, and while statistics show that the number of public transit violations has fallen slightly, even Manhattan’s progressive district attorney Alvin Bragg said last month that he was afraid for his family when they took the subway into the city.

“I know the statistics that transit crime has gone down, but when one of my relatives gets on the train, I get a knot in my stomach too,” he said. FOX5 news when asked about the perception that the subway system is becoming increasingly unsafe.

“I live here, I raise my family here, so we have a lot more work to do,” he added.

Serious crime in the subway system fell 9.9 percent in July from a year ago city ​​statistics.