NYC Subway Rider Stabbed in Face by Stranger in Terrifying Attack

A New York City subway rider was left with a gruesome facial wound requiring 20 stitches after a stranger suddenly attacked him at a Brooklyn station Sunday evening.

The 26-year-old victim, identified as Mamadou Lo, was preparing to board a southbound C train at the Rockaway Avenue station near Fulton Street in Brownsville shortly before 6 p.m. on Sept. 20 when the attack happened, according to police and published reports.

Lo said there appeared to be no warning that the man approaching him was about to turn violent.

“I was literally just putting away my headphones, not paying too much attention,” Lo told the New York Post.

He initially thought the stranger had punched him.

“As soon as I got up to him, it felt like he threw a sucker punch at me,” Lo said. He later realized the man had apparently used some type of sharp or metal object, leaving a deep wound along the left side of his face.

Emergency crews rushed Lo to Brookdale Hospital Medical Center, where doctors used about 20 stitches to close the injury. Police said he was in stable condition.

The attacker fled after the assault and had not been arrested as of Monday. Police have not publicly identified a motive, and investigators have not indicated that Lo knew the person who attacked him.

One account citing police said the suspect was wearing dark-colored clothing and fled aboard a C train.

For Lo, the physical wound may not be the hardest part of the ordeal.

He said he still depends on the subway like millions of other New Yorkers and knows he will eventually have to return to the same station where he was attacked.

“Is there definitely some paranoia playing in my mind? A little bit, for sure,” he told the Post.

Lo said the mental impact of the attack has left him feeling as though he needs to constantly watch his surroundings.

The stabbing comes as subway crime remains a closely watched issue in New York, although the latest official numbers show a more complicated picture than any single incident or week might suggest.

NYPD statistics show 163 major transit crimes were recorded in August 2026, compared with 178 during August 2025, an 8.4% decline. The department also said robberies in the subway reached a record low for the month. Those figures are preliminary and may later be revised.

At the same time, weekly crime numbers can fluctuate considerably. The source article reported a 31% year-over-year increase in transit crime for the week ending Sept. 13, even as the longer-term numbers remained closer to last year’s levels.

The NYPD publishes updated citywide and transit crime reports through its CompStat system and monthly transit reports, allowing the broader trend to be compared with short-term spikes.

Sunday’s attack also adds to a disturbing history of violence at the Rockaway Avenue station. In February 2024, an MTA conductor was slashed in the neck while working at the same station, an attack that left him needing dozens of stitches. The station was also the scene of a fatal shooting later that year.

Lo said he believes the city needs to do more to address people struggling with serious problems before situations turn violent.

For now, detectives are still trying to identify the man responsible for Sunday’s attack.

No arrests had been announced as of Monday, Sept. 21.