Subway slasher busted in Manhattan spree of unprovoked attacks on women, NYPD says

Rocco Parascandola, Thomas Tracy, New York Daily News
Updated ·3 min read
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A suspect was arrested Tuesday for a spree of unprovoked slashings targeting women on a Manhattan subway line, police said Tuesday.

Kemel Rideout, 26, was pinched in Harlem Tuesday morning by the same NYPD Neighborhood Safety Team assigned to the Transit Bureau that on Monday apprehended a homeless man for allegedly stabbing dead a straphanger aboard a Manhattan subway car, cops said.

“Hard work and good police work pays off,” NYPD Chief of Transit Michael Kemper said at a press conference at NYPD Headquarters. “Simply put, [it was] phenomenal, great police work.”

Rideout was charged with three counts of assault after five members of the Neighborhood Safety Team spotted him getting kicked off of an M15 bus for fare evasion near Second Ave. and E. 122nd St., cops said.

He was then seen going into a bodega near the corner.

Cops arrested him as he came out of the store with chips and a soda and took him to the NYPD Transit District station at the 14th St./Union Square subway station for questioning, a police source said.

The Safety Team noticed Rideout from a surveillance video of the suspect wanted in the slashing spree, cops said.

Rideout, who has a history of emotional problems, is accused of slashing three women’s legs in attacks on the Lexington Ave. subway line.

He has been arrested once before in the city, and four times in other jurisdictions, said cops.

Among those arrests were a criminal mischief in 2011 in Riverhead, L.I., and two arrests in upstate Norwich, N.Y., including a 2012 arrest for attempted rape, NYPD Chief of Detectives James Essig said.

Rideout’s first two victims were attacked at about 4:14 p.m. Sunday at the E. 86th St. station, cops said.

First, he attacked a 19-year-old Hunter College student, said police. Then he attacked a 48-year-old woman before hopping on a downtown No. 4 train.

Eighteen minutes later, he attacked a 28-year-old woman on that No. 4 train as it approached the Brooklyn Bridge-City Hall station, slashing her left leg before getting off the train, according to police.

All three victims were taken to local hospitals, where they received stitches before being released.

About 24 hours earlier, the Neighborhood Safety Team busted Claude White for a fatal stabbing on Saturday aboard a No. 4 train at the 14th St./Union Square station.

The team spotted White jumping a turnstile at the 125th St./Lexington Ave. station at about 10:40 a.m. Monday.

As soon as he was taken into custody, he confessed to stabbing 32-year-old Tavon Silver to death early Saturday, Essig said on Tuesday.

“He says they are known to each other,” Essig said. “He says it was a dispute over narcotics in which the deceased bought K2 and crack and he didn’t pass it on to him.”

White, who is on parole for a robbery and was wanted for a bank robbery that took place earlier this month, also told them where he ditched the bloody knife: on the roadbed of the 23rd St. station, cops said.

MTA CEO Janno Leiber said that high-profile crimes like the slashing spree and Saturday’s murder rattle commuters.

“It doesn’t feel good to hear about anyone getting hurt or attacked in the subway system, especially this kind of random attack,” Leiber said. “That’s especially unnerving. And it’s unacceptable.”

Overall transit crime is down 6% so far this year, with felony assaults down roughly 4% and felony assaults involving a bladed weapon seeing a 12.5% reduction compared with the same time frame last year.