{"id":250132,"date":"2025-09-23T23:19:15","date_gmt":"2025-09-23T23:19:15","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/250132\/"},"modified":"2025-09-23T23:19:15","modified_gmt":"2025-09-23T23:19:15","slug":"nyc-subway-rider-randomly-stabbed-by-smiling-straphanger-described-as-quiet-hard-worker","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/250132\/","title":{"rendered":"NYC subway rider randomly stabbed by smiling straphanger described as ‘quiet’ hard worker"},"content":{"rendered":"

The subway rider apparently randomly stabbed<\/a> by a sick smiling straphanger is a hardworking Manhattan restaurant worker who was coming home from a long shift when attacked, a pal said Tuesday.<\/p>\n

Roberto Gaspar, 25, was simply looking down at his phone when the violent stranger approached him from behind on a No. 7 train at the 111th Street station in Corona, Queens, on Sunday night, according to his friend and police sources.\u00a0<\/p>\n

The unidentified attacker \u2013 captured in a surveillance image smiling broadly \u2013 then plunged an \u201cunknown sharp object\u201d once into Gaspar\u2019s neck and twice into his back, cops said.\u00a0<\/p>\n

Roberto Gaspar, 25 was looking down at his phone on board a No. 7 train when a smiling stranger knifed him multiple times, cops and sources said. Obtained by the New York Post<\/p>\n

Gaspar was taken to New York Presbyterian\/ Queens Hospital, where pal Tomas Calel, 35, told The Post he now is hooked up to a ventilator, unable to speak.<\/p>\n

\u201cHe is serious. He can\u2019t talk,\u201d Calel said in Spanish outside the victim\u2019s Queens apartment building. \u201cHe\u2019s in the ICU. He\u2019s hooked up to machines.<\/p>\n

\u201cThe doctors say maybe he\u2019ll talk, maybe. We are hoping he recovers and will be able to talk.<\/p>\n

An NYPD surveillance image shows the suspected attacker grinning on board the train. NYPD<\/p>\n

\u201cI feel bad for him,\u201d Calel said. \u201cHe didn\u2019t see anything. He doesn\u2019t know who did it.\u201d<\/p>\n

Gaspar is originally from Guatemala but has been in the US for seven or eight years \u2014 working and sending money back home to his family, according to his friend. The victim has four sisters, one of whom also lives in the city, Calel said.\u00a0<\/p>\n

The victim typically works 10-hour shifts five days a week at a Manhattan restaurant, where he \u201cdoes everything\u201d from cooking to cleaning to dishwashing \u2013 and often takes on a sixth day in busy times to send money home to help his parents and three other sisters, Calel said.\u00a0\u00a0<\/p>\n

Gaspar takes the train to and from work and was headed home when the incident happened, according to Calel.\u00a0<\/p>\n

The victim was simply taking his daily train commute home from his Manhattan restaurant job when he was attacked, his pal said. Brigitte Stelzer<\/p>\n

\u201cI\u2019m angry. He didn\u2019t do anything wrong,\u201d Calel said. \u201cI believe [the attacker] is a bad guy. Why did he do that? I want them to catch this guy.<\/p>\n

\u201cHe\u2019s laughing,\u201d Calel added as he looked at the image of the gleeful suspect. \u201cHe doesn\u2019t care what he did to my friend.\u201d<\/p>\n

He described his badly injured buddy as \u201ca quiet guy\u201d who \u201cdoesn\u2019t make trouble\u201d and simply goes home to sleep after his long work days.\u00a0<\/p>\n

Calel said he plans to visit Gaspar in the hospital, where the victim\u2019s sister \u2013 who is \u201ccrying a lot\u201d and \u201cscared\u201d \u2013 was already gathered with her husband.\u00a0<\/p>\n

The assailant was still on the loose Tuesday, cops said. FOX 5<\/p>\n

Calel, who works at a different Manhattan restaurant, said he is now afraid to ride the train at night.\u00a0<\/p>\n

\u201cSometimes I go [to work] by train, sometimes I go by bike. I take the train at nights, I come home at 10 at nights,\u201d he said. \u201cI\u2019m afraid to take the train now because what happened to my friend could happen to me, too.\u201d<\/p>\n

Anyone with information on the assault is asked to call the NYPD\u2019s Crime Stoppers Hotline at 1-800-577-TIPS (8477) or for Spanish, 1-888-57-PISTA (74782).<\/p>\n

The public can also submit their tips by logging onto the Crime Stoppers website at https:\/\/crimestoppers.nypdonline.org\/<\/a>, or on X @NYPDTips.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"The subway rider apparently randomly stabbed by a sick smiling straphanger is a hardworking Manhattan restaurant worker who…\n","protected":false},"author":3,"featured_media":250133,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[5122],"tags":[5229,4219,5248,405,403,5226,5225,5228,5227,17049,8626,28715,19614,67,586,132,5230,68,1154,2969],"class_list":{"0":"post-250132","1":"post","2":"type-post","3":"status-publish","4":"format-standard","5":"has-post-thumbnail","7":"category-new-york","8":"tag-america","9":"tag-crime","10":"tag-metro","11":"tag-new-york","12":"tag-new-york-city","13":"tag-newyork","14":"tag-newyorkcity","15":"tag-ny","16":"tag-nyc","17":"tag-police-investigations","18":"tag-stabbings","19":"tag-subways","20":"tag-trains","21":"tag-united-states","22":"tag-united-states-of-america","23":"tag-unitedstates","24":"tag-unitedstatesofamerica","25":"tag-us","26":"tag-us-news","27":"tag-usa"},"share_on_mastodon":{"url":"https:\/\/pubeurope.com\/@us\/115256175199312412","error":""},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/250132","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/3"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=250132"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/250132\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/250133"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=250132"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=250132"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=250132"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}