A Bronx panhandler was indicted by a Queens grand jury for the attempted murder for the stabbing of a 23-year-old woman who was attacked while leaving the Jamaica-Van Wyck subway station in Richmond Hill last month.
Two good Samaritans from Venezuela, who live with their families at a nearby migrant shelter, ran to her rescue and intervened, holding the perpetrator until police arrived.
Randol Contreras, 24, of 241st Street in the Bronx, was arraigned Wednesday in Queens Supreme Court on a nine-count indictment charging him with attempted murder, multiple counts of assault and criminal possession of a weapon a day after the NYPD honored the migrants who stopped the bloody attack.
According to the charges, on July 28, at approximately 8:23 p.m., the 23-year-old victim exited the escalator onto the mezzanine and walked towards the exit of the Jamaica-Van Wyck subway station. Contreras approached the victim, holding a knife, and demanded money. The woman said she did not have any and went to hand her purse to Contreras, who backed her into a corner next to the escalator and stabbed her three times in the right side of her torso and then in the abdomen. He also slashed her face.
One of the good Samaritans was coming up the escalator and saw the stabbing and told his own son to run away before he yelled at Contreras to stop. Contreras turned his attention to the witness and then ran to the turnstile. The witness and another migrant followed Contreras out of the subway station and ordered him to stop. They jumped on him until police from the 102nd Precinct in Richmond Hill arrived and took Contreras into custody.
Back inside the station, another man saw the victim bleeding profusely and called 911. He then walked the woman out of the subway station and brought her to the nearby Jamaica Hospital Medical Center emergency room. A knife and the vest that Contreras was wearing were discovered in the trash.
“We have secured a grand jury indictment against Randol Contreras for attempted murder,” Queens District Attorney Melinda Katz said. “A young woman was seriously injured in this attack as she exited the subway station. This defendant allegedly asked the victim for money and then stabbed her multiple times in the torso, leaving her with a punctured liver and slashed her in the face.”
Queens Supreme Court Justice Toni Cimino remanded Contreras into custody without bail and ordered him to return to court on Sept. 30. If convicted, he faces 25 years in prison.
“Thank you to the brave witnesses who tried to stop the attack, helped the victim and then detained the defendant until police arrived,” Katz said.
On Tuesday, NYPD Chief of Transit Michael Kemper honored the good Samaritans from Venezuela, Alexander Oswaldo Robles Lino and Josnan Alberto Palacios in front of their families at One Police Plaza. Kemper hailed them as heroes and presented them with citations.
Kemper also addressed the negative press some Venezuelan asylum seekers received in the last two years due to gang crime associated with the migrant crisis.
“Unfortunately, when you’re dealing with hundreds of thousands of people, you’re going to have some people, a small percentage, in that group that are not here for the right reasons,” Kemper said. “That is not the norm, this is the norm, and this is why we’re excited to recognize what they did, and their actions.”
After receiving his award, Palacios told amNewYork Metro, with the help of a translator, that he hopes his actions will help change the mindset surrounding migrants, especially those who seek asylum in the United States from his native Venezuela.
“It is now being shown that there are good people with good intentions and a good heart,” Palacios said. “At the end of the day, this is something that has to come to light so everyone can see that everybody’s the same.”
Additional reporting by Dean Moses
