NY police have apprehended the man they believe shoved Ki Suk Han, 58, under the wheels of an oncoming subway train Monday. Police say the man implicated himself in Han’s death.
Former deli worker Naeem Davis, 30, was taken into custody on Tuesday after investigators viewed security video that showed a vagrant fitting the suspect’s description talking to street vendors near Rockefeller Center, said New York Police Department spokesman Paul Browne on Tuesday.
“The individual we talked to made statements implicating himself in the incident,” Browne said. No arrest has been made.
Davis confessed to pushing Ki Suk Han, 58, off the platform and onto the tracks, where he was run over by a train. “I begged him to leave me alone, and he wouldn’t,” Davis confessed to police.
The NY Post is taking heat for publishing a cover photo showing Han desperately trying to save himself just moments before he is run over and killed by a NY transit train on Monday.
Mr. Han, of Queens, was described by the Post as a “good samaritan” who tried to protect NY transit riders from a crazed panhandler at the Times Square station.
The unidentified panhandler exchanged words with Mr. Han before shoving the middle aged man onto the train tracks. Mr. Han desperately tried to climb back onto the platform but he was too weak to lift himself.
Witnesses tell the Post Han was hit by the train and dragged 10-15 feet down the tracks. He was pronounced dead at a local hospital.
Han’s wife, who lived with him and their college-age daughter in Elmhurst, said he was drinking and they argued before he left home.
NY Post photographer R. Umar Abbasi was also on the platform waiting for the train when he snapped 2 photos of Mr. Han’s last moments on earth.
One of Abbasi’s photos was published on the cover of the Post Tuesday morning. The Post was immediately besieged by angry phone calls and emails from its outraged readers.
Other media outlets condemned the actions of the NY Post and its photographer. “I’m sorry. Somebody’s on the tracks. That’s not going to help,” said Al Roker on NBC’s Today show.
CNN’s Soledad O’Brien tweeted: “I think it’s terribly disturbing — imagine if that were your father or brother.”
The Post explained that Abbasi was too weak to lift Mr. Han onto the platform.
Abbasi himself gave the excuse that he was using his camera’s flash in an attempt to warn the train conductor that a man was on the tracks.
“I wanted to help the man, but I couldn’t figure out how to help,” Abbasi said. “It all happened so fast.”
The Chicago Tribune reports that the NY Post “declined to share the photo with The Associated Press for distribution” to other newspapers.
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