Man charged with punching straphanger onto tracks in possible ‘knockout-game’
The man accused of randomly punching a 62-year-old Bronx straphanger onto subway tracks in a possible “knockout game” has been charged, cops said Monday.
Deshaun Smith, 21, approached his victim on the platform of the 149th Street-Grand Concourse station around 9:45 p.m. Sunday and suddenly socked him, according to police and law enforcement sources.
The victim tumbled onto the tracks, authorities said.
Luckily, no train was pulling into the station at the time, and the injured man was taken to a local hospital in stable condition.
Smith was busted by cops inside the station and charged with reckless endangerment, assault and harassment, police said.
He was ordered held on $20,000 bail at his arraignment early Tuesday morning.
Police suspect that the attack was part of the “knockout game” – a twisted social-media challenge in which players dare each other to slug a stranger with the goal of knocking the person unconscious with a single blow.
Smith of Williamsburg, Brooklyn, was previously busted Oct. 6 for snatching a 51-year-old woman’s keys and injuring her hand, cops said. Police described the crime as a domestic incident but couldn’t immediately confirm the woman’s relationship to him.
He was busted in the confines of the 90th Precinct – which covers Williamsburg – and charged with grand larceny, police said.
But online records indicate he was only arraigned on the charges of harassment, criminal mischief and menacing – and released on his own recognizance.