LONG ISLAND CITY (WPIX)—
A large group of men attacked a woman on the subway by trying to drag her off a train Thursday night, but the woman turned the tables on the thugs by fatally stabbing one of her attackers and escaping on another F train.According to police, as many as eight men surrounded the woman outside a chicken restaurant near the 21st Street-Queensbridge station at about 9 p.m on Christmas Eve.
The thugs grabbed at her and may have made unwanted sexual advances as she entered the underground station.
She broke free from the group and ran to the platform with the men hot on her tail.
Police say the men managed to drag her off the train and up the stairs back to the mezzanine level.
During this struggle, the woman managed to stab one of her attackers several times in the chest.
The other men continued to chase her as she ran back down to the Queens-bound platform, boarded the F train and made a narrow escape.
Ricardo Josephs, 41, an MTA employee said to the New York Daily News, "they all jumped over the turnstiles after her. She got on the Queens train. They tried to grab her. They tried to hold the train, but she got away."
The attacker was later identified as 29-year-old Thomas Winston, who lives in a nearby shelter and has a 10-month-old daughter. He was soon pronounced dead at a Manhattan Hospital.
Winston has a long rap sheet, and his most recent arrest was in September for a narcotics charge.
Police are looking for remaining attackers and the unidentified woman, whom they suspect was acting in self defense.
