A suspect has been arrested on a murder charge Wednesday in the death of a man who was pushed in front of a subway train in New York and photographed just before he was fatally struck Monday, Dec. 3.
The suspect, 30-year-old Naeem Davis, is alleged to have pushed 58-year-old Ki-Suck Han onto the train tracks following a verbal altercation. Police took Davis into custody for questioning Tuesday after a security video showed a man fitting the suspect's description working with street vendors near Rockefeller Center.
According to Officer James Duffy, Davis has made statements implicating himself in Han's death.
Witnesses revealed to investigators they saw a man talking to himself Monday afternoon before the man approached Han at the Times Square station. Han died shortly after being struck by the oncoming train, said Fox News. He tried to climb off the tracks to safety, but was pinned between the train and the platform's edge, police said.
A grisly image of Han attempting to climb back onto the platform as the train raced towards him has circulated in the wake of the tragedy, igniting national outrage when the New York Post made the photograph it's entire front page, accompanied by the headline, "Pushed on the subway track, this man is about to die."
The photographer responsible for the image has begun speaking out, insisting he did everything he could to save the man, and that he has sold the rights to the photos of the incident.
"Selling a photo of this nature sounds morbid. I licensed these photographs," freelance photographer R. Umar Abbasi told NBC's Today show.
Abbasi told Today he didn't see much of the altercation Monday and that he was hundreds of feet from the accident.
"It took me a second to figure out what is happening," he said. He said he saw Han try to get back on the platform.
"I saw the lights in the distance of the approaching train. The only thing I could think of was to alert the driver with my flash," Abassi said. He said he didn't realize until much later that he had useable photos.
According to Abbasi, Han was probably on the tracks for about 20 seconds, and said others were closer to Han and might have been able to save him.
"There is no way I could have rescued Mr. Han," Abbasi said. "What surprised me was that people maybe 100 feet or 150 feet did nothing to help."
Abbasi claims after the train struck Han, onlookers swarmed around his motionless body and the doctor attempting to help him, taking videos.
"My condolences to the family," Abbasi told Today. "If I could have, I would have pulled Mr. Han out. I didn't care about the photographs."
Abbasi wrote a first-person account of the tragedy for the Post Wednesday, revealing he didn't actually look at the photos until later that night.
"It was terrible, seeing it happen all over again," Abbasi wrote. "I didn't sleep at all. All I can hear is that man's head against that train: Boom! Boom! Boom!"
While many fear subway pushes, they're actually incredibly rare. According to the Post, among the more high-profile cases was the January 1999 death of Kendra Webdale, who was shoved to her death by a former mental patient.
Following that incident, The New York State Legislature passed Kendra's Law with bipartisan support, which allows mental health authorities to supervise patients who live outside institutions to make sure they are taking their medications and aren't a threat to their safety, or anyone else's.
Mayor Michael Bloomberg said he thinks this may be a similar case. Bloomberg said he believed that "in this case, it appeared to be a psychiatric problem," according to the Post.
The mayor said Queens-native Han, "if I understand it, tried to break up a fight or something and paid for it with his life."
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