Dramatic video footage captured the moment a 69-year-old homeless man stabbed thugs who mercilessly terrorized him on a Queens subway, killing one person and wounding another.
In a twist of justice, the surviving criminals are now behind bars, prosecutors said.
“The victim was approached without provocation, and our investigation revealed that he defended himself while trying to retrieve his property,” Queens District Attorney Melinda Katz said in a statement on Wednesday.
“As a result, my office will not file charges in the death.”
Graphic footage of the violent confrontation on the 7 train on December 22 shows the victim asleep on the train shortly before 12:30 a.m. when two of the brutes – identified by prosecutors as Stalin Moya and Osvaldo Walter – grabbed one of the man's bags and took her to a second car.
Moya then returns and picks up more of the victim's bags, waking him up in the process.
That's when things got violent.
The unidentified victim followed Moya to the second car to try to retrieve his belongings, but was attacked and bombarded by several men in the group as they dispersed and hid his bags.
The footage shows the victim being repeatedly pushed and beaten by the group, until he had enough, pulled out a long knife and stabbed his attackers, wounding at least two.
The cowardly thugs then disperse – one of whom is seen stumbling and bleeding from his wounds – while the victim stands in the middle of the empty subway car, still clutching the knife.
Queens prosecutors said Moya was killed and defendant Felipe Pena was wounded.
A grand jury indicted Pena, 26, Walter, 29, and two others – Jose Valencia, 35, and Henry Tubanta, 32 – on robbery and assault charges in the incident.
All of the suspects are also homeless, the DA's Office said.
“Our subways must be safe for the millions of people who rely on public transportation,” Katz said in her statement. “The New York City subway system is equipped with cameras, and the video recovered in this case is vital to our prosecution.”
The incident comes amid a recent spike in violence on the subway and has similarities to previous cases when loiterers resisted transit thugs.
Most notably, the case of Daniel Penny, a Marine who was acquitted of the suffocation death of homeless person Jordan Neely on a Manhattan F train in 2023.
Jordan Williams, another man, fatally stabbed an aggressive homeless man after he assaulted him and a companion on a Brooklyn G train later that year, but was acquitted when a grand jury voted not to indict him on manslaughter and weapons charges.
Additional reporting by Amanda Woods
