Good Samaritan Throws Box Cutter Wielding Drunk Off Subway

A courageous New York City subway rider took matters into his own hands on Saturday when an obviously drunken passenger began threatening other passengers with a box cutter.

Good Samaritan Jose Ceron, 50, valiantly confronted 37-year-old Diego Morales and demanded that he stop harassing a group of female passengers. He managed to pull the threatening rider out onto the platform and hold him there until authorities took him into custody.

The frightening incident unfolded in the middle of the afternoon as passengers rode the No. 1 Train in Upper Manhattan. Both Ceron and Morales were waiting on the platform when the younger man began acting “belligerent and being a nuisance to himself.”

When the train arrived and passengers boarded, Morales allegedly began shouting at a group of women. He is accused of attacking one by grabbing her hair, and this was when Ceron stepped in.

The hero told the New York Post that he rebuked Morales in Spanish. “Don’t do that. You don’t need to do that.”

Ceron said the suspect then stood up, “pulled out a box cutter and pulled the blade all the way out and held it to my face and said ‘I’ll cut you, I’ll cut you right now.”

But Ceron did not back down, telling Morelos that “you’re leaving the train right now.” The suspect is very familiar with legal trouble as he has 16 prior arrests.

Among those encounters with law enforcement were charges of criminal possession of a weapon, menacing a police officer and criminal trespass. 

The hero recalled to the Post that he told people to move away from the compartment’s doors. “The train pulled into the station and I pulled him out and he fell straight on his face. I held him down. It took about a minute and the police came.

Officers arrested Morelos, and he was charged with menacing and criminal possession of a weapon. The suspect was hospitalized for a cut on his face apparently suffered when he fell.

Ceron said police found a “cheap bottle of bourbon” in the suspect’s possessions. There were no reports of any other injuries.