More East Village Violence: Suspect Still At Large after L Train Subway Slashing

Another victim was slashed in a stabbing on East 14th St. and First Ave. along a stretch of the East Village that the city has pledged to clean up. .

At around 8:45 p.m. on Friday, Sept. 20 a man was stabbed in the back on the L train platform at First Ave. after apparently bumping into another passenger. The victim at first thought he had been punched in the back, but then an MTA security officer on the platform saw the blood.

Police from the 13th Pct and 4th Transit unit raced to scene. “Upon arrival, officers observed a 29-year-old male with a stab wound to the back,” according to a police spokesperson. EMS responded and transported the victim to NYC Health and Hospitals/Bellevue where was listed in stable condition. There are no arrests and the investigation remains ongoing, police said. Police released a surveillance video of the suspect, described as an Asian man who was dressed in black wearing a white baseball cap. Anyone with information about the stabbing is asked to call the NYPD’s Crime Stoppers Hotline at 1-800-577-TIPS (8477).

It is in the same vicinity where a fatal stabbing took place in June. Alejandro Piedra, 30, was charged with murder in the stabbing death of Clemson Coxfield, 38, who had come to the aid of his wife who police said had been stabbed in the leg by Piedra Police said all three were homeless and that a dispute that erupted on June 23 and led to the fatal clash centered around drugs. Police began a crackdown that evicted many of the homeless and unlicensed vendors at that time and set up a mobile command unit on the corner of Ave. A and E. 14th, about a block away from the most recent stabbing.

Tompkins Square Park a short distance away was also the scene of a bloody shooting near the chess tables in the south end of the park in July that police said was also tied to the neighborhood drug scene.

In that case in a shooting around 10 a.m. on July 12, two men were arrested Angel Sardina and Rafael Macias, both 63, and charged with second-degree murder and second-degree attempted murder for killing a 74 year old and seriously wounding a 44 year old man. Police said that it centered around a dispute over drugs.

In March, Waldemar Alverio, 28, was charged with three counts of attempted murder, two counts of assault and one count of reckless endangerment for two separate incidents in Tompkins Square Park over several days. Two innocent bystanders were injured in the first shooting on March 16. In a second shooting on March 22, that was tied to Alverio, bullets hit an apartment building across the street from the park but fortunately nobody was hurt.

Two innocent bystanders were shot and injured by gunfire during the first shooting on March 16. Neither sustained life-threatening injuries.