A stranger slashed three women on their legs in separate unprovoked attacks on a Manhattan subway line, police said Monday.
“There was no dialogue,” said NYPD Chief of Transit Michael Kemper. “It was without provocation and with no conversation, pre or post.”
The first two victims were attacked around 4:14 p.m. Sunday at the E. 86th St. station on the Lexington Ave. line.
Bianchelly Diplan, 19, was exiting a downtown No. 4 train and walking up the stairs to the mezzanine on her way to pick up a cake for Father’s Day when the assailant slashed her right leg from behind, she told the Us.Mistertruth.
“As I’m walking off the stairs, he cuts me in the back of my right leg,” said Diplan, who is studying political science at Hunter College. “I turn around, and I see him. We made full eye contact. [His face was] blank, like it was nothing.”
Diplan said the slasher cooly walked off and a good Samaritan helped her to the station’s customer service booth, where an MTA agent called 911.
Diplan and the people who aided her were waiting for police when they spotted another woman limping towards them, blood streaming down her leg, she said.
“The guy in the booth is calling 911 and when I’m there, some girl, like 5 minutes later — she comes up and she has [a stab wound], as well,” Diplan recounted.
After assaulting Diplan, the slasher attackeda 48-year-old woman on the platform before hopping on a downtown No. 4 train.
Medics took both women to a New York-Presbyterian Hospital Weill Cornell for treatment, where Diplan’s family came to console her.
“My dad came, my sister, my mom, we were all at the hospital together,” she said. “That was the way we celebrated Father’s Day.”
Eighteen minutes later, the suspect assaulted a 28-year-old woman on the No. 4 train as it approached the Brooklyn Bridge-CIty Hall station and slashed her left leg before getting off the train, according to police
Medics took that victim to Bellevue Hospital.
All three victims received stitches for their wounds and have been released from the hospitals.
“The injuries were substantial, fortunately not life threatening,” said Kemper.
None of the victims saw the blade that slashed them and no weapons were recovered following the suspect’s bloody spree, the chief said.
Diplan — who received 19 stitches for her gash and is bedridden due to the attack — wants justice.
“They just need to catch him,” she said. “It makes everybody safer, that he’s caught.”
Sunday’s slashings followed the death of Tavon Silver, who was found bleeding from numerous stab wounds aboard a Brooklyn-bound No. 4 train at the 14th St.-Union Square station just after 4 a.m. Saturday.
That deadly stabbing left commuters thinking twice about using the city’s subway.
“It’s scary,” commuter Andre Maman told The News. “I take the subway at 4 a.m. all the time and you never know.”
Diplan said she couldn’t help but agree.
“Even though I knew stuff like this could happen, I didn’t think it would happen to me,” she said. “I think I’m a little scared.”
Overall transit crime is down 6% so far this year, with felony assaults down roughly 4% and felony assaults involving a bladed weapon seeing a 12.5% reduction compared to the same time frame last year.
Police have deployed an additional 80 cops to patrol the city’s transit system as detectives pursue suspects in the rash of slashings, according to Kemper.
Diplan’s mother said the city should make the redeployment permanent.
“They should put more officers in the subway station,” said Miosotys Diplan. “How are you going to attack somebody you don’t even know? Doesn’t make any sense!”
Cops released surveillance footage of the suspect, wearing a Boston Red Sox baseball cap.
Anyone with information about the slashing suspect is asked to call Crime Stoppers at (800) 577-TIPS. All calls will be kept confidential.