The man whom police say was involved in a fatal fight with a LaGuardia Community College student at the Bedford Avenue L train station on Friday night won't face murder charges. Ryan Beauchamp, 33, has been charged with attempted assault and harassment in connection with the incident, which ended with Joshua Basin, 20, struck by a Manhattan-bound L train, getting pinned between platform and the train. (Attempted assault is a misdemeanor, while harassment is a violation.) As the charges were filed, new details emerged about the tragic incident.
Witnesses say Beauchamp, a homeless man from Westchester who once attended boarding school with one of Donald Trump's sons, was drunk and berating passengers on the L train Friday night around 10 p.m. On his way out of the train at Bedford Avenue, Beauchamp bumped Basin on the shoulder, according to one police source, who says Basin then got off the train to confront Beauchamp.
“It leads eventually onto the platform, but then [Beauchamp] tries to run away,” the law enforcement source tells the Daily News. “There was a point when it was over and Basin followed him." The two men scuffled on the platform, and they both fell on the tracks as a Manhattan-bound train entered the station. Beauchamp made it out in time, but Basin was killed.
Some of Basin's friends and relatives say the charges are too lenient. NY1 sent a reporter to Basin's wake yesteray, which was attended by hundreds of loved ones, and Basin's mother tells NY1, "I am extremely angry. I don't understand how they can charge, what do they call it, attempted assault?" Another mourner says, "What, is he going to go back out onto the street after this? What is he going to get, like six months in jail and we don't get Josh any more? At all, ever?"
