REVEALED: Thug who beat woman, 60, FIFTY TIMES with her own cane on NYC subway is 43-year-old man with nine previous arrests – as victim’s daughter slams bystanders for ‘doing nothing’
Police have identified a suspect in the case of the brutal assault of a 60-year-old woman on the New York City subway — a 43-year-old man with at least nine other arrests.
Norton Blake’s laundry list of priors, named at a press conference by the city’s police chief, reportedly ranges from drug charges and assault to trespassing and resisting arrest.
He remains at large, NYPD Chief of Police Michael Kemper told reporters Tuesday — nearly four days after victim Laurell Reynolds was filmed being assaulted with her own cane by a man believed to be Blake.
Within days, the two-minute clip went viral, sparking a search for the man on footage after he successfully fled before police arrived.
The attack occurred just before 3:30 a.m. Friday, as Reynolds — who lives in the Bronx — made his way through the station at 116 West and Lenox Avenue in Harlem. In comments to The New York PostReynolds’ daughter revealed she only learned of the attack after seeing the video online.
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Police have identified Norton Blake, 43, as the only suspect in Friday’s attack, which took place at a West Harlem train station around 3:30 a.m. and was filmed
Laurell Reynolds was filmed being assaulted with her own cane by a man believed to be Blake.
“Now I know,” recalls 41-year-old Lashanne Reese, also from the Bronx, after wondering why her mother never showed up to her apartment for a party she had on Saturday, after leaving her home. go home and change.
Of the poignant footage—which appeared to be filmed from a subway toll booth—she said, “I’m hurt, it hurts.”
“That man could have killed my mother,” she added, as her mother is hospitalized and believed to be in stable condition.
“You all did nothing. I have a problem with that.’
As Reese suggested, no one on the platform stepped up to help her mother during the attack — which many have since speculated was filmed by an MTA employee.
On Tuesday, shortly after Kemper revealed that officers were now “looking” for Blake, MTA chairman Janno Lieber said he was unsure who filmed the incident rather than helping Reynolds, and that he was “unaware was of the details of what happened. ‘
However, he did claim that employees employed by the taxpayer-funded agency were instructed to call both the NYPD and the Rail Control Center in the event of a possible crime.
Kemper said a call came in about 3:30 a.m. about an attack on the station, but by the time officers responded, the suspect had already disappeared.
A timeline for this chain of events was not given on Tuesday, but Kemper did suggest his troop police were close to making an arrest.
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.
Insiders reportedly said that while on the run, Blake is well known to police and has previously been arrested for drug possession, trespassing, resisting arrest, tampering with evidence, possession of stolen property and assaulting two officers in 2003 and 2017.
You can see that the suspect hit her on the head, abdomen, legs, arms, hands and back with the cane, eventually breaking the cane. Speaking to the New York Post, her daughter said she wasn’t sure why she had traveled to Manhattan from the Bronx so late at night.
At no time were any transit personnel or police around to notice or attempt to stop the brutal beating – which appears to have been filmed from the station’s toll booth. City officials say they do not know who made the images
“We’re looking for him, and I’m pretty sure he’ll be arrested and charged for that assault shortly,” Kemper assured reporters after revealing that Blake was their only suspect.
As to how the altercation initially went, the top agent said he and others believed the suspect and Reynolds had been in some sort of altercation 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.
Local law enforcement sources further told the Post that while on the run, Blake is well known to police and has previously been arrested for drug possession, assault, trespass, resisting arrest, tampering with evidence and possession of stolen property.
NYPD Chief Michael Blake named the suspect at a news conference Tuesday, while sources said he has a laundry list of priors ranging from drug charges and assault charges to trespassing and resisting arrest. The top agent said on Tuesday that officers were still trying to make an arrest
Shortly after Kemper revealed that the officer was “looking for” Blake, MTA chairman Janno Lieber (pictured) said he was unsure who filmed the attack, and that he was “unaware of the details of what happened.” took place’. The case – which stems from a series of violent incidents – is still ongoing
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.
Not sure why her mother was on her way to Harlem, Reese complained to The Post about the situation — and how neither the witness nor the person filming the footage came to the rescue.
“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% in July city statistics.