UPPER EAST SIDE, Manhattan (WABC) — The man accused of slashing three women in two subway stations on Sunday just minutes apart is expected to be arraigned on Wednesday.
Police charged 28-year-old Kemal Rideout with multiple counts of assault and he was taken to Bellevue Hospital for a psychiatric examination.
Investigators said he targeted three women at random in the New York City subway and sliced their legs open with a knife.
It happened in the span of just 16 minutes on the Lexington Avenue line Sunday afternoon. One victim’s wound was so deep, paramedics needed a tourniquet to stop the bleeding. She has 20 stitches you can see and 10 more underneath.
Eyewitness News reporter Sonia Rincon spoke with the recovering victim Tuesday night, and she is extremely relieved her attacker is off the streets.
“I was on the train, texting my boyfriend,” she said requesting to remain anonymous. “Some random guy walked past me and sliced me-I don’t know what he used-and nonchalantly walked away. My body was in shock. I didn’t feel the pain right away. My first instinct was to get a video of him and then looked down and saw the blood coming down.”
The chilling cellphone video the 28-year-old victim recorded shows the suspect escaping through the moving train. She says detectives told her the video was helpful in linking the suspect to the two other slashings.
MTA surveillance cameras captured the suspect bolting the turnstiles at the Brooklyn Bridge/City Hall station in the moments after the assault.
Just 16 minutes earlier, detectives say he attacked two other women the same way, as they exited the 86th Street station on the Upper East Side. He was arrested Tuesday morning in East Harlem.
“Less than 48 hours since the slashings occurred, these officers, armed with the suspect’s photo, observed him walking down an open Manhattan Street and apprehended him,” NYPD Transit Division Chief Michael Kemper.
Another one of the victims, 19-year-old Bianchelli Diplan, was attacked while leaving the 4 train at 86th Street.
“I started up the steps and then I felt something in the back of my leg. So like, I like, hold on to it. And I saw there was blood. So I turned around I saw him and, like, he just stared at me and I was crying, crying. And he just walked away,” Diplan said.
WATCH: NYPD briefing on arrest in weekend subway slashings & more
Police believe Rideout also slashed a 48-year-old woman at that station and rode the train down to the Brooklyn Bridge Station. None of the women knew each other and the attacker said nothing.
Law enforcement sources say Rideout has a history of psychiatric issues. He also has an arrest history with charges including forcible touching, assault, and attempted rape. All of which occurred upstate.
Police say the same officer who arrested Rideout also spotted another suspect in connection to a deadly stabbing on a subway train Saturday morning.
Claude White, 33, was arrested Monday in connection to the death of 32-year-old Tavon Martin. He was arraigned Tuesday on second-degree murder charges and criminal possession of a weapon.
The motive for the fatal stabbing was a dispute over drugs. White told detectives that Silver, who he knew, “bought k2 and crack and didn’t pass it on to him.” An argument over the drugs that started at the 59th Street station turned physical at 28th Street, and Silver was stabbed by 23rd Street, where White got off the subway train and threw the murder weapon into the roadbed.
He also has a long criminal history and was wanted for a bank robbery earlier this month.
The three subway slashings Sunday afternoon were “unprovoked.” The victims were “completely unknown to each other” and to the suspect.
Subway crime was down 13% last month but that may be of little consolation to riders after the violent weekend.
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