N.Y. police question woman in subway pushing death

New York City police have taken a woman into custody in connection with this week’s subway pushing death in Queens, authorities said Saturday.

The suspect, described by police as a person of interest, “has made statements implicating herself in the death of Sunando Sen,” NYPD Deputy Commissioner Paul J. Browne said in a statement.

He did not release the woman’s name or provide additional information.

On Friday, police released a sketch of the woman witnesses said shoved Sen, a 46-year-old Queens resident, from behind and onto the tracks as a train approached Thursday night. Witnesses said the woman had been talking to herself prior to pushing Sen.

The suspect fled from the elevated station in the Sunnyside neighborhood of Queens, police said.

The pushing incident was the second such death in New York this month, causing some commuters to worry about their safety on the city’s sprawling transit system, the primary way many people get around.

On Dec. 3, Ki-Suck Han was crushed by an oncoming train at a subway station in Midtown Manhattan. Han, 58, had been on his way to the South Korean Consulate to renew his passport when, witnesses said, he began arguing with a man who had been harassing people on the platform.

The man, later identified as 30-year-old Naeem Davis, is accused of pushing Han onto the tracks. Davis, who is homeless, has been charged with murder.

On Friday afternoon at the above-ground station where Sen died, some riders remained anxious.

Maria Roquete, 55, promptly took a seat on a wooden bench, rather than stand near the edge of the platform, as she waited for her train.

“Even if this station is empty, I have to sit down,” said Roquete, who moved to New York from Brazil 13 years ago. “I’m scared.”

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