Man stabbed to death at Brooklyn Bridge-City Hall subway station, NYPD says

Police said a 38-year-old Fort Greene man was fatally stabbed on the subway Friday morning in Lower Manhattan during rush hour.

NYPD officials said John Sheldon was riding a southbound train on the 4/5/6 line around 8:40 a.m. when another man stepped on his shoes, leading Sheldon to become enraged and start shouting. The other man then stabbed Sheldon once in the torso, police said.

After the train stopped at the Brooklyn Bridge-City Hall station, both men exited the train, according to the NYPD. Officials said Sheldon, a resident of NYCHA’s Ingersoll complex, continued shouting and the other man stabbed him a second time on the platform.

First responders took Sheldon in critical condition to Bellevue Hospital, where he died, officials said.

Police said they were looking for a man in his 30s wearing a black jacket and black headphones who fled the station after the incident. Officials were still investigating the incident and whether the men knew each other.

Sheldon is the first person to be killed in the city’s transit system so far this year, according to the MTA. The NYPD recorded 10 homicides in public transit last year.

Subway safety remains a chief concern for many New Yorkers and has drawn the attention of multiple mayoral candidates as well as the Trump administration. U.S. Transportation Secretary Sean Duffy visited the subway earlier this month with Mayor Eric Adams, just two weeks after threatening to withhold federal funding from the MTA unless officials submitted a plan to address transit crime.

The MTA said southbound 4 and 5 trains would bypass Brooklyn Bridge-City Hall while police investigated. The transit agency said riders could board and exit 6 trains on the station’s northbound platform, and could take southbound 6 trains from 14th Street–Union Square for service to City Hall.

Correction: Due to incorrect information initially provided by the NYPD, an earlier version of this story misidentified the stabbing victim. This story has been also been updated with additional information.