(NEW YORK) — A 35-year-old man arrested on suspicion of pushing his girlfriend onto the New York City subway tracks causing both her feet to be severed by an incoming train, had been imprisoned for attacking a woman and threatening to hurl her child off a fire escape during a 2017 home invasion, according to police.
Christian Valdez was arrested following the Saturday morning domestic violence attack at the Fulton Street subway station in lower Manhattan, according to the New York Police Department.
Valdez, who listed his address as a women’s homeless shelter in Brooklyn, was captured about 9:30 p.m. ET in lower Manhattan, about 11 hours after the subway station attack, according to a police incident report.
The suspect has been charged with attempted murder and felony assault, according to police.
The incident unfolded around 10:30 a.m. Saturday during an argument on the Fulton Street subway station platform, according to police.
“Further investigation determined that the female was pushed onto the tracks by a 35-year-old male after they were engaged in a domestic dispute,” according to the NYPD incident report.
The 29-year-old victim, whose name was not released, was struck by a southbound No. 3 train, according to police.
The woman was taken to Bellevue Hospital, where she was listed in stable condition, according to police.
NYPD officers called to the station found the victim conscious and responsive with injuries to her legs after being struck by the train, police said. Both of her feet had been amputated, police sources said.
Valdez was awaiting arraignment in Manhattan Criminal Court Sunday afternoon. Information on whether he has hired an attorney or has been appointed one was not immediately available.
Valdez is the same man who was arrested in September 2017 for breaking into an apartment in the city’s Bronx borough, stabbing a woman who lived there and attempting to throw her 3-year-old daughter off a fire escape, police confirmed to ABC News.
During the 2017 attack, authorities said the mother tried to get away from Valdez by climbing onto her third-floor fire escape with her young daughter, but that Valdez followed her and struck her with a glass bottle before wrestling the child away. When the victim tried to take her daughter back, Valdez allegedly threatened to throw the girl over the railing, witnesses told ABC station WABC at the time.
A good Samaritan rushed to the rescue after hearing the commotion and seeing the suspect threatening the child, he told WABC at the time. The good Samaritan said he threw vases and other household items at Valdez before a second neighbor also intervened and grabbed the child from the suspect.
“I kicked the door open, I ran in, and I went to the fire escape,” said the good Samaritan, who didn’t want to be identified. “I told him, ‘Let her go! Let her go!'”
Valdez was convicted in 2020 of second-degree attempted assault stemming from the Bronx attack and sentenced to eight years in prison, according to court records reviewed by ABC News. Valdez was released from the Sing Sing Correctional Facility in Ossining, New York, on Jan. 9, 2023, according to records. He was on parole at the time of Saturday’s attack.
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