NYC subway stabbings suspect named and charged with murder

Stabbings caused concern across transit system

A homeless man was arrested on Sunday and charged in relation to a series of stabbings on the New York City subway that caused alarm across the transit system.

Rigoberto Lopez, 21, was arrested and charged with multiple charges, including murder and attempted murder for the attacks that left two people dead and two people injured in separate incidents over a 24-hour period on Friday and Saturday.

The assaults all happened on the A line in upper Manhattan and Queens, while all four of the victims were also homeless. Mr Lopez was detained near the scene of the attacks in Upper Manhattan.

One victim was found dead on a train in Queens at around midnight on Friday with several stab wounds to his neck and torso.

In the early hours of Saturday, a 44-year-old woman was found with fatal stab wounds to her body on a subway train in upper Manhattan.

Two other men were injured in non-fatal stabbings. A 67-year-old was stabbed on Friday at around 11:30am as he pushed his walker along the southbound platform at 181st Street station in Washington Heights.

A 43-year-old man was reportedly stabbed in the back early on Saturday as he slept in a station stairwell at West 181st Street.

The man ran to a bank following the stabbing and collapsed, according to The New York Times. He is currently in a stable condition in hospital.

In the wake of the stabbings, the New York Police Department (NYPD) deployed an additional 500 officers into the subway system across the city as a safety measure.

“To the victims, to the victims’ families, we are 100 per cent committed to getting justice. to bring closure to the families of this terrible incident,” Police Commissioner Dermot Shea said during the news conference on Sunday.

A law enforcement official briefed on the investigation told the Times that investigators are looking into whether the man is connected to earlier similar attacks.

The Independent has contacted the NYPD for comment.

Additional reporting by the Associated Press