MTA Decries 3 ‘Outrageous’ Attacks On Workers In 24 Hours

NEW YORK CITY — A spate of violent attacks on MTA workers — including a subway conductor who was pushed onto the tracks — prompted harsh condemnations from transit officials.

"Attacking a public servant who is working hard to keep New York moving during this time of uncertainty is heartbreaking, outrageous, and frankly, unfathomable," New York City Transit Authority interim President Sarah Feinberg said in statement. "Over the past 24 hours, three New York City Transit employees — workers who were simply doing their jobs, serving the public — were attacked, assaulted, threatened, and in one horrifying instance, pushed onto subway tracks."

The attacks started late Monday in the East Village when a bus driver sat in an out-of-service bus, officials said. A man held the bus’ front doors open while a woman rushed onto it and punched the driver in the face, according to a release.

Then, separately on Tuesday morning, a man pushed a platform conductor onto the tracks at the Hoyt-Schermerhorn Street station in Brooklyn, officials said.

Minutes later at 8:09 a.m. and a borough away in Queens, a bus driver found himself facing harsh words from a pedestrian, officials said. The pedestrian, a man, capped the encounter with a punch to a bus window, shattering it, according to a release.

“These reckless displays of violence are part of a troubling pattern we are seeing across our system,” Feinberg said in a statement. “We have sounded the alarm on this disturbing trend to the NYPD a number of times. More needs to be done.”