Police are searching for a suspect who allegedly robbed two people who were sleeping on the subway in the wee hours of the morning, spraying one in the face with what was likely pepper spray.
On Sunday, January 10th at 4 a.m., a witness observed Angel Garcia, 47, stealing a cellphone from a 37-year-old man who was asleep on a 4 train at the Woodlawn station, an NYPD spokesperson said. He was arrested in the station on charges of grand larceny; upon searching him, police found that he was in possession of two cans of pepper spray.
Now police are searching for Garcia once more after tying him to a similar case that occurred just a week earlier, also on a 4 train in the Bronx. The NYPD says that on Sunday, January 3rd at 4:50 a.m., Garcia allegedly stole an LG cellphone from a 22-year-old man who had also fallen asleep on the train at the Bedford Park Boulevard Station. Prior to stealing the phone, he allegedly sprayed the man in the face with an irritant. The suspect fled the scene, while the victim was transported to Montefiore Hospital for treatment.
Police could not confirm whether the irritant was pepper spray and said that the investigation was ongoing. Garcia was linked to the January 3rd incident after his arrest for the similar one a week later: the NYPD spokesperson said that given the parallel situations, he was likely included in a photo lineup and identified by the 22-year-old victim as the perpetrator.
Police Commissioner Bratton recently announced that the NYPD will begin waking up sleeping subway riders, claiming that 50 percent of reported subway crimes "involve sleeping passengers." Sleeping on the subway does not violate the MTA's rules of conduct as long as it is not "hazardous to such person or to others or may interfere with the operation of the Authority's transit system or the comfort of its passengers"; given the prevalence of crime against sleeping straphangers, the city now believes that sleeping is, indeed, a hazardous act. In the past, the NYPD has cracked down on (and even arrested) tired commuters taking up more than one seat.
Police are asking that anyone with information about Garcia's whereabouts call the NYPD's Crime Stoppers Hotline at 1-800-577-TIPS (8477), submit a tip online, or text their tips to 274637 (CRIMES) and entering TIP577.
