Violent Panhandler Punches 2-Year-Old's Head On NYC Subway

Amid the recent rise in urban transportation crime in New York, a vicious panhandler hit a two-year-old toddler in the face on a Manhattan subway line.

A female beggar walked between the train-car doors on northbound C train on Frederick Douglass Boulevard and West 116th Street in Manhattan and began asking passengers for money, according to cops and reports. The encounter happened on Saturday around 3 p.m. while the toddler was sitting on his mother's lap.

Sources told The New York Post that the boy's mother was telling the panhandler to remain six feet apart. The perpetrator, however, went on to step on the left foot of the mother.

The perpetrator started beating the 2-year-old when the mother questioned why the panhandler jumped on her foot.

A witness told the police that she had to drag the perpetrator away from the mother and boy, who sustained a slight noticeable injury to his face and ear, sources said.

When the train stopped at a station, the assailant, identified to be in her 40s, fled the train, police said.

The wounded child was transported by ambulance for treatment to Mount Sinai-Saint Luke's Facility, police sources said.

The offender was identified as a heavy-set woman. Witnesses saw her wearing a gray hooded sweatshirt, washed-out pants, boots and a white face mask with a neck tattoo and buzzcut.

The event was only one in a string of disturbing recent train crimes, including a gruesome random slashing spree that left two people dead and two others injured on the A-line earlier this month.

DailyMail said transit employees are demanding that the 24-hour subway schedule be halted in May to facilitate station maintenance due to the coronavirus pandemic.

Employees say the nighttime hours have been unsafe because the subway is not actually operating.

During the nighttime hours while trains are shut down, the MTA told DailyMail that five subway employees have been attacked.

Meanwhile, authorities noted almost 300 complaints of abuse against subway employees since August. The MTA recently ordered the deployment of 1,500 additional officers from the NYPD to the subway system.

Instead, on Tuesday, the NYPD sent fewer than half it, committing 644 police officers to the metro stations.

Since the onset of the pandemic, the rail infrastructure has deteriorated tremendously, with ridership down about 90% as people operate more frequently from home.