Man arrested after punching woman over apparent 'manspreading' comment on subway

[ansible]

BENSONHURST, Brooklyn (WABC) -- A man has been arrested after reportedly punching a woman in the face over a 'manspreading' complaint on the subway in Manhattan.

Derek Smith, 56, was arrested and charged with assault on Saturday evening.

Samantha Saia said the ordeal started as soon as she took a seat next to the man on an N train in Bensonhurst during the morning commute.

"He started pushing me and manspreading me into the wall," Saia said.

That's when Saia said he turned violent.

"He told me expletive, you expletive, I've raped white b****** like you before. You're nothing and then he elbowed me," she said.

So she said she put her earbuds back in and then it turned even uglier.

"He said 'Don't ignore me. I felt this.' I turned around and bam, I banged my head into a wall. And at that point I just felt blood gushing."

Her lip was bruised, swollen and bloodied.

But it could have been worse if a Good Samaritan didn't step in, and that's when a passenger on the train started recording.

The Good Samaritan jumped in and confronted the subway attacker. He forced the man to exit the train at the next stop.

http://abc7ny.com/man-arrested-after-punching-woman-over-apparent-manspreading-comment/2667562/

[oasis]

1. Press charges. Hopefully he'll fail at making bail

and he won't be out to intimidate witnesses or cause more trouble.

[malaise]

16. +1,000

One more scumbag

[dhol82]

2. Have to say that I have recently been seeing more and more guys doing stupid shit on the subway late

lately.
Manspreading, backpacks on the seat, luggage blocking a seat.
All with an attitude.
I have been able to wiggle my way into some seats but some of the guys look ready to rumble.
Not pleasant.

[Irish_Dem]

3. Thank God others intervened. What is really scary is when you are alone with someone like this.

No one to help you.

[angstlessk]

4. eons ago I sat next to a man who started to grope me

I stood up and declared to everyone on the bus he was touching me...the bus driver stopped the bus and forced him off.

That was the end of that!

[Irish_Dem]

5. Today you don't know who is packing a gun and might shoot you. Scary. nt

[Not Ruth]

6. NYC has eliminated gun crime in the last 40 years and terrorism in the last 16 years

It is probably the safest city in the world

[Irish_Dem]

7. Wow, I had no idea. So it is more dangerous in the small towns now than the big city. nt

[Not Ruth]

8. When you adjust for population, absolutely

[Irish_Dem]

9. Thanks for the info Not Ruth, very interesting.

Edited to add:

If NYC can do it, the rest of America should be able to do it too.

[Ms. Toad]

17. That's a bit strong.

There were 998 shooting incidents in NYC in 2016. It is significantly down - but significantly down is not eliminated.

As for terrorism, the truck on the walking path earlier this month is not terrorism?

It may well be a safe city, but eliminated is an extreme word that doesn't apply.

[Not Ruth]

18. Adjust for population and gun crime / terrorism are very much non existent

[Ms. Toad]

19. Tell that to the more than 998 people injured by nonexistent gunfire

Or the families of the 8 people who died in the nonexistent terrorist attack

I'm not disputing the safety of NYC - I'm disputing the use of the word iliminated or non-existent, both of which assert there is none.

[MyNameGoesHere]

20. What is a shooting incident?

Seems pretty broad. What does it mean?

[Ms. Toad]

21. Just using the label given by the NYPD in their year-end report

Bullets struck 1181 people (some incidents wounded more than one person), so shooting incident is not just firing the gun into the air or at targets other than people.

Beyond that, you'd have to ask the NYPD what they meant.

http://www.nydailynews.com/new-york/nyc-crime/nyc-historically-number-shootings-2016-article-1.2933098

[RhodeIslandOne]

10. I wonder if this could be prosecuted as a hate crime. n/m

[smirkymonkey]

11. I am so sick of people like this. I can't tell you how many times I have had

to politely ask a man to please let me sit down because he was taking up the width of two seats. Unlike this unfortunate woman, I have not been assaulted yet. It is a problem for female subway riders.

[ProudLib72]

12. The last time I witnessed manspreading was in 7th grade

I thought it was stupid and childish then. Nothing has changed to alter that perception. Seriously, this is just a case of a man being physically stronger than a woman and using that to intimidate her for fun. Wish he'd been pepper sprayed.

[phylny]

13. This is awful. The manspreading thing has been around forever.

I remember I used to drive to Jamaica, Queens and take the 7 train to the city. I took turns driving and rode the subway with a young woman named Sophia, I can still hear her voice with her perfect New York accent: "What, you think you have something huge between your legs that you need to take up three seats??"

This was in the early 80s

[ecstatic]

14. Really glad she's okay. My unsolicited advice,

and this has nothing to do with victim-blaming, it's about protecting one's body and life through common sense:

NEVER engage a crazy person. I would have walked away from the moment he started manspreading, but after the first violent rant she should have booked it to the next train car, if necessary. He said he raped women! How do you put your earbuds back in after that, as if nothing happened? WTF!

[backscatter712]

24. Sometimes, you don't see the crazy until it's too late...

It's not always easy to spot.

[Ms. Toad]

15. That title is misleading

It makes it sound like she said something to him, and then he turned violent in response.

I can't find anything that indicates he is reacting to a complaint about manspreading - as opposed to just being an aggressive male who used manspreading as part of a larger parttern of physical violence against this particular woman who did not respond to his initial manspreading advances.

[muriel_volestrangler]

25. No, the title is right; it's that the article missed out that step

From the Daily News article:

Saia was riding the N train through Bensonhurst on Thursday morning when the man sitting next to her opened his legs wide, crowding her into the side of the subway car.

The man allegedly flipped out and got in her face after she asked him to make room for her.

http://www.nydailynews.com/new-york/nyc-crime/manspreading-maniac-arrested-punching-woman-viral-video-article-1.3642485

[Ms. Toad]

29. Pretty odd that the article leaves out the one line that supports its title.

[Orrex]

26. When I first heard of "manspreading," I didn't believe that it could possibly exist

It seemed so pointedly absurd that I figured it was just a joke that everyone was in on.

Reality proved me wrong, of course.


What kind of a self-important asshole does that?

[Not Ruth]

27. Have you ever been on the subway?

IMHO, this has “inspired” a new kind of selfishness, and well as counterattacks. If you are a people watcher, it is fascinating to watch someone put a bag on a seat next to them, or take up more than their allocated space due to weight or social issues........and watch someone (all genders) go out of their way to counter by sitting directly in the path of the storm, even with an empty set of seats inches away.

I am NOT saying that is what happened here, but manspreading is real, and not confined to men.

The fight is real.

[Orrex]

28. I've only been on a New York subway two or three times, and not recently

I don't recall it to have been an issue on Pittsburgh's trolleys or buses, but maybe I wasn't aware of it?

I sure as hell hope that I was never guilty of it. I don't think that I did it, but I haven't used Pittsburgh's public transit in several years.