Video captured a fight between two men on a New York City escalator in Grand Central Station before they tumbled down to the platform, shocking onlookers.
The incident occurred on Thursday at about 11 a.m., when “a 37-year-old male punched a male victim in the face after a verbal dispute,” the NYPD told Fox News Digital on Monday.
The video posted to social media with the caption, “on my lunch break commute through Grand Central,” opens with onlookers staring at the steps of an escalator before two people tussling on the escalator come into view.
People are seen moving away from the dueling pair in the roughly 30-second video. The two are then seen tumbling down the steps in a flurry of flailing arms and legs.
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A video shows people fighting on escalator at Grand Central Station.
(TMX/@smoothnorris)
The NYPD said the 37-year-old suspect was arrested and charged with assault.
The man who recorded the video, who spoke to Fox News Digital on the condition of anonymity, said it appeared the altercation broke out after one of the men standing on the left side of the escalator “refused to get out of the way” of the other man.
He said that some onlookers were hysterical during the incident, while others “just wanted to get on with their day without any issue – typical NYer mindset.”
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A video shows two people fighting on escalator in Grand Central before falling down the escalator.
(TMX/@smoothnorris)
The anonymous straphanger noted that he has seen more police on the subway in recent months, “but they are usually just on their phones, chatting amongst themselves, stationary and not patrolling.”
He added that it is “tough to gauge” the safety on the subway system in its current state, relaying that some areas and “certain stations … feel safe and folks are looking out for each other,” while other “areas/certain stations that seem to attract more mentally unstable individuals resulting in unnecessary / unprovoked conflicts.”
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A video shows two people fighting on NYC escalator before falling to the platform.
(TMX/@smoothnorris)
“Holistically, I ride the subway every day alongside millions of others and see far more positive interactions between people,” he added, noting the positive interactions don’t get as much coverage in the media.
This is not the first time a fight has broken out at Grand Central Station. In March, two men were seen fighting on an escalator and also falling down the stairs.
“It was shocking considering the time and location,” the man who shot the video, and wished to remain anonymous, told the New York Post at the time. “I could see the helpless fear from the people considering there was nowhere to go.”
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The fights in Grand Central Station comes as the New York City subway system notched a 25-year-high in murders in recent years. Since 2020, there have been 21 killings in the subway system, the New York Post reported last week. The figure is more than the 20 murders recorded between 2008 and 2019 combined, according to the data.
