In December, 58-year-old Ki-Suck Han was fatally shoved onto the subway tracks at the 49th Street N/R/Q station in Manhattan. Naeem Davis, the homeless man who was arrested and charged for the shoving, admitted to police he shoved the victim into the oncoming train, but argued that Han was the aggressor. Now, Han's family is suing the MTA for negligence. “The motorman and the Transit Authority need to be held accountable for a man who was crushed to death,” said attorney Michael Kremins, who’s representing Han’s 20-year-old daughter, Ashley. “If everybody was doing their job and paying attention, this man would still be alive."
Ki-Suck Han
, the family claims Han “suffered from fear of impending death” before he died, the MTA failed to keep the platform “in a safe condition,” and motorman Terrence Legree failed “to make timely and adequate use of the brakes” when coming into the station. “Ki Suck Han sustained severe injuries including but not limited to blunt impact to the head and crush injuries of the head and torso resulting in death,” court papers say.
The lawsuit also cites the recent rash of subway fatalities as one of the inspirations for the suit: “In the last several months it’s almost every week you pick up the paper and it’s another subway death,” Kremins noted. “That’s the main reason we commenced this action, to hopefully prevent this from happening to others.”
Video of altercation between alleged subway shover and victim from Gothamist on Vimeo.
Davis told police after the incident that Han attacked him first, claiming he only shoved Han onto the tracks after seeing him brandish something resembling a knife. His legal aid defense lawyer, Stephen Pokart, echoed that statement, saying Han was the aggressor during the confrontation, telling reporters his client reportedly "was involved in an incident with a man who was drunk and angry."
Han's wife has previously said that she had argued with her husband that morning and that he had a drinking problem. “He was drunk. We had a fight before he left here at 11 a.m. I told him to leave,” she told the Post in December. Han had a blood-alcohol level of .24at the time of his death, three times the legal limit for driving. “Even for drinkers, that’s awfully drunk,” Pokart added. At the same time, Davis admitted in a jailhouse interview that he was under the influence of pot at the time of the incident, and he kept hearing voices telling him he had to do something.
