A woman from New York, who initially declined to assist prosecutors after being attacked by a mentally unstable individual on the subway, seems to be grappling with significant remorse following the fatal stabbing of a retired teacher.
“Maybe a part of me didn’t want another black man in prison,” the 23-year-old, who wishes to remain anonymous, mentioned during a conversation over the weekend.
Now, she expresses that she feels “100% remorseful and truly sorry for the loss of this man’s life.”
In an interview, she recounted the distressing subway incident involving Ramel Burke, 32, a repeat offender who has been accused of pushing a retired teacher—just out of a psychiatric ward—down a staircase, leading to her death.
She recalled that on April 2, while riding the subway in Manhattan with a friend, Burke approached them and tried to engage her in conversation, prompting the pair to switch cars to avoid him.
According to her account, the assailant followed closely, grabbed her by the head, and then turned his aggression toward her friend.
“He came up and kicked my friend in the back and pushed him away during the car transition,” she said during a phone interview on Friday night.
Fortunately, the train reached West 4th Street Washington Square Station in Greenwich Village soon after, allowing them to escape. Burke, however, did not relent easily.
“We started running a little bit and then, thankfully, the police were right there because we kept thinking, ‘If the police weren’t there, we would have literally had to run for our lives,'” she recounted. “They arrested him right away. The police acted quickly, which we appreciated.”
Although initially shocked by the experience, the woman and her friend ultimately decided not to assist the prosecution.
Burke faced a murder charge this past Friday after allegedly killing 76-year-old Ross Falzone at a Chelsea subway station the previous night.
Before this, police had taken Burke to Bellevue Hospital for “erratic behavior,” only to release him about an hour later; he is now implicated in an unprovoked fatal attack that same evening.
The news of the murder charge shifted her perspective. “Maybe part of me thought, I don’t want another black man in prison. But if you’re a criminal, you’re a criminal, and he was a really frightening individual.”
