Man Yanked N.J. Train's Brake, Shocked Riders, Jumped Off — Just To Get 'Dropped' Cell: Witness

MIDDLETOWN, NJ — It was a surreal moment. Every morning at 5:15 a.m., Middletown resident Robert Kelly boards the North Jersey Coast Line train direct to Penn Station, where he disembarks for his IT management job in Midtown. It's a commute that hasn't changed in 15 years. This past Monday, he experienced something ... unnerving.

"I was running late that day so I got a later train; it left around 7 a.m. I get on in Middletown and we made it to Newark," Kelly, 46, told Patch. "A bunch of people get on, including this gentleman (later identified as Eric Jones). He stood by the door. At this point I had gotten up and was standing right next to him, with about 15 people around us."

All of a sudden, "Out of nowhere, with no warning, Jones reaches over and pulls the emergency stop," Kelly said. "As soon as he did that I stepped away from him."

The train came to a graceful stop just south of the Secaucus Junction station. Kelly and the other passengers watched in shock as Jones pried open the doors and jumped onto the tracks.

"He forced the automatic doors open and proceeded to jump out of the train. We were all just watching what he was doing and the conductor came up to me and said, 'What's going on?' I told him and he said, pardon my French, 'Get the F out of here.' I said, 'Look, he's right there.' The guy was literally walking down the tracks."

What happened next gave Kelly a very bad feeling.

Jones crossed over three sets of tracks, he said, and ran to one of the electrical units along the tracks.

"He was walking down the side of the train and then crossed over three sets of tracks and got to the little house, fumbled with it. He went into one of those gated areas and did something to it," Kelly said. "He fumbled around the gated area and started coming back towards the train."

This was not mentioned in the account NJ Transit officials gave of that morning, who said Jones pulled the brake and jumped onto the track because he dropped his cell phone.

"He comes back to the train and the conductor asked, 'What's going on, buddy?' The guy immediately went into his story about how he dropped his phone. He then tries to get back on the train, but the conductor said, 'Oh no, we've already called the police. You're not getting on, you're getting arrested.'"

"He did not seem fazed he was being arrested. He was very calm. He just kept saying, 'You're arresting me because I dropped my phone?'"

Up to five Transit police and more conductors showed up, and by then, people were streaming out of the car, wanting to escape the scene. But not Kelly. "I think they were afraid something was going to happen. I stayed right there. I wanted the guys to know that he ran over to that electrical house and fumbled with it."

When asked by Patch, an NJ Transit spokeswoman reiterated that Jones, a Harlem resident, was charged appropriately, with trespassing and interfering with transportation. However, the investigation remains ongoing, she said.

But what Kelly witnessed nagged at him. Later Monday night, he called NJ Transit police, at 1-888-TIPS-NJT. He told a dispatcher there what he witnessed. The dispatcher assured him that someone had gone back and checked that electrical house after the incident.

"His story may be true," Kelly told Patch. "It was just very odd that he went across the tracks. I don't think a cell phone would bounce 100 yards, if it did drop at all. Of course the first thing that went through my mind — and through the minds of all the people around me — was terrorism."

"I've been riding the train for 15, 20 years now and it never occurred to me that someone would pull the brake for a cell phone," he said. "It was a very eerie feeling ... there are a lot of holes in security at NJ Transit. There are so many things someone could do to disrupt the lives of millions of people going in and out of New York City every day."

Read the original story here: Rider Pulls Emergency Brake on North Jersey Coast Train

Patch file photo