It was like a scene out of a real-life, and nightmarish, Popeye cartoon.
A Manhattan woman on her way to jury duty was hurt in the subway when a maniac dropped a heavy, foot-tall plant on her head.
The victim, 63, was entering the station at East 51st Street and Lexington Avenue in Midtown on Monday around 9:30 a.m. and was at the bottom of the stairs when the flying flora came smashing down.
“He did this just for kicks. His intention was to hurt me. For what reason?” native New Yorker Cecile Komplita fumed to The Post. “Luckily it was not in a pot it would have cracked my skull or worse.”
The twisted suspect’s accuracy was “so good,” Komplita said, she believes he’s “done this” before.
Cops told Komplita they believe her attacker flung one of two plants he ripped out from “big concrete planters” located by the station entrance, she said.
Cops told the victim they believe her attacker flung one of two plants from “big concrete planters” located by the subway station entrance. Helayne SeidmanThe stunned straphanger initially thought she had been struck by a piece of falling plaster, but “I looked down and there was a plant and my head was full of dirt. . . . I went back up the stairs and that’s when I saw him.
“He definitely looked crazy. He didn’t look like someone who was homeless and down and out. He definitely looked like someone who had mental problems,” Komplita said.
Komplita flagged down a police officer, but the NYPD could not find the madman.
Cops told Komplita they believe her attacker flung one of two plants he ripped out from “big concrete planters” located by the station entrance, she said.
Komplita said she didn’t file a police report because she was late for jury duty.
“I’ll get arrested for not showing up, but he’ll never get arrested,” Komplita said of the irony. Cops told her that if they do find her attacker, “they will bring him in, write him up, give him a ticket to go to court and he never shows up.”
Komplita said she had a “mild concussion. The first day was pretty bad. Now I have to go to a different station in order to avoid this crazy person. So my life is disrupted.”
The financial planner posted the horrific incident next door “so people would be careful because obviously nothing happens unless something serious happens to somebody. I’m trying to help prevent that from happening.”
“He did this just for kicks. His intention was to hurt me. For what reason?” native New Yorker Cecile Komplita said. “Luckily it was not in a pot it would have cracked my skull or worse.” Helayne SeidmanThe born-and-bred Staten Islander, who has lived in Manhattan since 1984, said the city is “moving in the wrong direction” and she’s “seriously considering” moving to Texas.
“Bail reform has got to change. The police have got to be given more leeway. Their hands are tied. Bail reform is out of control. Basically, if I don’t steal a lot and I don’t kill anybody, I can do whatever I want,” she snarked.
“First it was the taxes and now it’s the crime. Now you are giving me two reasons to leave. The only reason left to stay is the food.”
Transit crime in Midtown North, where the crime occurred, is up 40% this year through Dec. 4, with 66 incidents compared to 47 in the same period in 2021, NYPD data show.
