The first thing Kevin Gibson did after returning to his house, torn apart by a powerful tornado Monday, was pull an American flag and a temporary flagpole from the corner of his partially standing garage.NEW YORK – For New York City, it wasn’t an unusual sight: a possibly mentally ill woman pacing and mumbling to herself on an elevated subway station platform.
The woman eventually took a seat on a bench Thursday night, witnesses later said. Then, without any warning or provocation, she sprang up and used both hands to shove a man into the path of an oncoming train.
As police sought on Friday to locate the unidentified woman, Mayor Michael Bloomberg urged residents to keep the second fatal subway shove in the city this month in perspective. The news of the horrific death of 46-year-old Sunando Sen, who was from India and lived in Queens, came as the mayor touted drops in the city’s annual homicide and shooting totals.
“It’s a very tragic case, but what we want to focus on today is the overall safety in New York,” Bloomberg told reporters following a police academy graduation.
The New York Police Department released a sketch of the woman and surveillance video of her fleeing the area and interviewed witnesses, including some who described her as acting agitated before the attack.
Some witnesses said Sen had been shielding himself from the cold by waiting in a stairwell before he ventured out onto the platform to see if the train was coming.
They also said he had no interaction with the woman, who immediately darted down a stairway after she pushed him.
One witness told police that Sen had no time to try to save himself.
Investigators identified Sen, who lived alone, through a smartphone and a prescription pill bottle he was carrying.
They notified his relatives in India of his death.
