Police Arrest Man Seen In Video Violently Beating Elderly Woman On Subway

A man accused of attacking a 78-year-old woman on a 2 train in the Bronx—an incident that was documented in a distressing video disseminated by the NYPD last week—was arrested over the weekend. But his lawyer argues the elderly woman threatened him first.

Marc Gomez, a 36-year-old Yonkers resident, was charged with multiple counts of assault and harassment for the March 10th incident. Authorities say that around 3:10 a.m., when the train pulled into the White Plains Road/Nereid Avenue station, Gomez punched and kicked the woman who was sitting on a seat before leaving the train at 238th Street. The woman stayed on the train until the 241st Street station, where she was treated by EMS.

In a video showing the assault, no other subway passengers appear to intervene and stop Gomez during the attack.

A tipster called the police, and Gomez was arrested on Saturday in Greenwich Village. During his arraignment, a lawyer appointed for Gomez said, "She was homeless and lying across the seat and wanted all other passengers to move... She said, at that point, ‘I have a knife and I’m going to stab you,'" and showed a "sharp instrument."

Gomez's fiancee, Alisa Cox, also told the Post and NY Times that the woman threatened them as well as her 11-year-old daughter. Cox claimed, "She kept going off about stabbing and killing people," and when they were about to get off at the 238th Street station, the woman allegedly yelled, "I’ll kill you, I’ll kill your wife, I’ll kill your daughter!"

"It looks like he just went over there and starting kicking her for no apparent reason," Cox said.

The victim was described as mentally ill by a former neighbor at a Bronx co-op; the neighbor told the Post that she moved out a few years ago, "She wasn’t paying rent. She threatened at least three co-opers with a knife… She used to call the fire department, cops all the time."

Gomez is being held on $30,000 bond; he has an open case for gun possession.