A young woman, aged 23, courageously shared her harrowing experience of being attacked in the subway by a notorious repeat offender. This same individual is also accused of tragically causing the death of a retired New York teacher just hours after being discharged from a mental health facility.
During an interview with The Post, the shaken victim recounted how she and her companion were riding the Manhattan subway on April 2 when Rhamell Burke approached them. The duo quickly cut off the conversation and attempted to switch train cars in a desperate bid to escape his unsettling presence.
According to her account, Burke pursued them and allegedly grabbed her head, trying to throw her to the ground, while also kicking her friend in the back.
“He kicked my friend in the back, pushing him through the car transition,” the woman recounted during a Friday night phone interview. “My friend panicked and ran, and then he grabbed my head, trying to force me to the ground. I resisted with all my strength and managed to avoid falling. I quickly opened the car door and dashed towards my friend.”
Fortunately, the train made a timely stop at the West 4th Street-Washington Square Station in Greenwich Village, allowing the terrified pair to escape in a hurry.
The train then “luckily” stopped at the West 4th Street-Washington Square Station in Greenwich Village, the victim said, prompting the alarmed pair to bolt off in a panic.
As they made their frantic escape, she said the 32-year-old serial offender was creepily following them.
“We get off at West 4th Street and then we turn around and we see he’s following us. That’s when I was like: ‘Oh, like, this is scary. Like, why is he following us?’” the woman recalled, calling the perp a “buff guy.”
“We started running a little bit, but then thank God the cops were right there because, I mean, we kept thinking about, imagine that there were no cops, we would have had to literally run for our lives. They immediately arrested him. It was shut down really fast by the cops and we respected that.”
She said the attack left her and her friend “in shock,” but they ultimately chose not to cooperate with prosecutors — a decision she now regrets after Burke was charged with murder on Friday for allegedly hurling 76-year-old stranger Ross Falzone to his death at a Chelsea subway station Thursday night.
Police had taken the violent brute to Bellevue Hospital for “acting erratically” Thursday afternoon before he was released about an hour later and allegedly launched the deadly unprovoked attack later that night.
“I regret it 100% and I actually feel really bad that a man lost his life,” the woman said.
“Maybe a part of me was just like, I don’t want to put another black man in jail, but, you know, at some point, if you are a criminal, you’re a criminal, and he was scary, he was a scary guy.”
Burke was hit with an assault charge for the April attack and granted supervised release at arraignment.
