A 44-year-old man with a lengthy criminal history has been collared for allegedly stabbing a breakdancer aboard a Manhattan subway train, police said Saturday.
The suspect, Lateef Coleman, was arrested in the Union Square subway station Friday morning after he was spotted by eagle-eyed public safety agents who recognized him from transit surveillance posters, police and sources said.
Police said the suspect knifed the 22-year-old victim three times — twice in the leg and once in the arm — in an unprovoked attack on an L train approaching the 3rd Avenue station just before 2 p.m. Thursday, police said.
The suspect got off the train at the 1st Avenue subway station, while the victim took the train to Williamsburg.
The victim was taken by EMS to Bellevue Hospital with non-life-threatening injuries.
Coleman, who is charged with assault and criminal possession of a weapon, has 21 prior arrests, police said.
“He has a significant amount of arrests,” an NYPD spokesman said.
Coleman, a resident of the Eastchester section in the Bronx, is a felony recidivist whose past crimes include fare evasion, burglary and assault, police sources said. His record dates back to 1995, the sources said.
Coleman has been arrested more than 20 times, according to police. Peter GerberOn July 17, he was nabbed on the Brooklyn Bridge as an emotionally disturbed person, the police sources said.
