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Homeless parolee convicted of subway shove a decade ago arrested for another unprovoked transit attack on 28-year-old woman: cops
A deranged homeless man on parole after serving time for attempted murder — for shoving a transgender woman onto subway tracks a decade ago — assaulted another straphanger in an unprovoked attack within the transit system on Sunday, according to cops.
The suspect, 42-year-old Rolan Reid, asked a woman to swipe him into a Manhattan station with her MetroCard on the mezzanine level of the 14th Street B/D/F station Sunday at 2:45 p.m., police and sources said.
When she refused, Reid struck her with a metal rod and then punched her in the arm, according to law enforcement sources.
Rolan Reid is accused of hitting a woman with a metal rod and punching her in the arm inside of the 14th Street B/D/F station.
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The 28-year-old victim sustained a laceration in the unprovoked attack, the NYPD said.
She was taken to Bellevue Hospital by paramedics and was listed in stable condition.
Officers from Transit District Two in the Sixth Precinct arrested the suspect at the station, cops said.
Reid was charged with one count of assault to cause physical injury with a weapon, possession of a forged instrument – sources said he had 14 bent MetroCards in his possession – and criminal possession of a weapon, police said.
Reid was on parole until March 2028 after he was convicted of another subway assault, which investigators designated a hate crime.
On June 5, 2015, Reid confronted a transgender woman on the southbound No. 6 platform at the Bleecker/Lafayette Street station at 9 a.m., police said.
He was ranting when he approached the victim.
'What are you looking at?' he screamed at the woman, also 28.
Then he threw a plastic bottle he had just fished out of a trash can at her and charged. He shoved her onto the tracks and started hurling anti-transgender comments at her as she desperately tried to climb out, according to cops and prosecutors.
Police obtained security footage of Reid rummaging in a nearby trash can just moments before he threw the plastic bottle at the victim.
The 28-year-old victim was taken to the hospital and listed in stable condition.
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Other riders rushed to the victim's aid and lifted her off the tracks. She was taken to Bellevue Hospital where she was treated for cuts and bruises and released, cops said.
Reid was charged with second-degree attempted murder and second- and third-degree assault. The charges were upgraded to hate crimes, investigators said.
He has 20 other arrests — many of them transit-related, including fare beating and menacing, sources said.
In a separate subway crime on Sunday, three teens cornered a 14-year-old on the staircase of the northbound Q train station at Avenue U in Brooklyn around 4:40 p.m. and stole his iPhone and his backpack containing his sneakers and a coat, cops said.
Police said there were no injuries in during robbery and the incident was under investigation. The teen suspects remain at large.
Despite the two Sunday incidents, subway crime decreased to the second-lowest level in 27 years, according to NYPD stats released in April, with major crime dropping 18% during the first quarter.
Police Commissioner Jessica Tisch reported that for the first time in seven years there were zero murders in the transit system.
She credited the drop to a surge in NYPD patrols of subway platforms and trains to combat crime and violence.
'The women and men of the NYPD are driving record-breaking reductions in crime and violence,' Tisch wrote in the report. 'In the first quarter of this year, we've cut shooting incidents down to the lowest number in history and made our subways safer than they've been in nearly a decade. Our precision policing strategies aren't just working — they're delivering historic results and making New York City the safest big city in the nation.'
