A 25-year-old man has been charged with murder in the stabbing death of a fellow rider on a J train in Queens, police said.
Jyrell Thomas was taken to a hospital for a psychiatric evaluation Thursday morning. He was described by police as emotionally disturbed.
He was later arrested on charges of murder and criminal possession of a weapon.
Police said Thomas was pacing back and forth inside the train car and appeared agitated before approaching Mesias Lojano, 59, just after 4 p.m. on Wednesday. Lojano tried to walk away before Thomas swung at him with a kitchen knife, according to police.
Bismarck Villareyna witnessed the attack and recorded video aboard the train.
“I heard, oh somebody is being attacked, somebody being attacked. So I pulled out my phone, started walking, as you see in the video,” Villareyna said.
The violence eventually spilled onto a J train platform, where bystanders chased Thomas.
“There was an old man behind me – hold him! Hold him! Hold him! And that’s when he started running. And then I started running after him,” Villareyna said.
Villareyna said he considered trying to physically intervene but was concerned that he could also be stabbed.
“I wanted to kick him, but I say, you know, if I kick him and I miss or he stabbed me then. So I was getting my position. I tried to record to get, you know, evidence.”
Villareyna continued following Thomas and directed officers to him. Thomas climbed onto a rooftop, where he had to be lifted and carried away.
“Then he stopped there and he sat down and he was saying, ‘oh, I’m sorry, I didn’t mean to do it.’ But in some of my videos, I was, I was upset,” Villareyna said.
Thomas has one prior arrest, stemming from a robbery early last month in which he stole $23 of merchandise from a Bronx Target. He was charged with petit larceny, obstruction of governmental administration and criminal possession of stolen property.
This is the sixth homicide in the subway system this year. There were four murders in the system all of last year, and 10 in 2024.
There has been a 7% increase in assaults in the subway this year, with 441 vs 410 at this time last year.
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