An unhinged homeless man admitted to shoving an Asian woman into an oncoming subway train in Times Square as he was marched out of a Midtown Manhattan police station to face a judge Saturday night.
“Go f— yourself,” Simon Martial, 61, yelled at reporters as he was escorted out of the Midtown South precinct wearing a white Tyvek suit, a cloth mask, slippers and a jacket.
When asked if he had killed Michelle Alyssa Go, a 40-year-old Upper West Side resident, Martial copped to the ghastly attack, and claimed he was “God.”
“Yeah because I’m God. Yes I did. I’m God, I can do it,” Martial shouted to a gaggle of reporters, adding “she stole my f—ing jacket, that’s why,” when asked about his motive.
The victim was waiting on the N/Q/R/W platform at 9:40 a.m. when the suspect shoved her onto the tracks as a southbound R train barreled into the station, officials said.
“This incident was unprovoked and the victim does not appear to have any interaction with the subject,” NYPD Commissioner Keechant Sewell said at an afternoon press conference.
Martial had initially approached another woman, who was not Asian, in the station, but the woman became alarmed and moved away, according to police.
“She feels that he was about to physically push her onto the train,” Assistant Chief Jason Wilcox of the NYPD Detective Bureau said. “As she’s walking away she witnesses the crime where he pushes our other victim in front of the train.”
Martial then took a train to Canal Street, where he turned himself in to transit officers 13 minutes after the attack, police said.
Unprovoked attacks on Asian Americans soared in New York City during the coronavirus pandemic amid anti-Chinese political rhetoric, and were up 368 percent in 2021, according to police data.
Many of the crimes occurred in the subway system, which city and state officials recently pledged to fill with expanded police presence and social service teams to combat rising crime and help shift homeless people living underground into shelters.
“We had a robust plan for this station today. We had six officers assigned to it. There were two officers on the southbound platform to the southern end when this incident occurred,” Assistant NYPD Chief Kathleen O’Reilly said.
“Unfortunately these incidents do occur. They’re rare but this one is very harrowing and disturbing,” she said.
Community leaders said that even if Saturday’s fatal attack was not motivated by racial hatred, it added to a sense of palpable fear among Asian-Americans.
“This is horrifying. It’s a horrible attack on yet another one of our citizens,” said Wai Wah Chin, charter president of the Chinese-American Citizen’s Alliance of Greater New York. “This has to stop.”
Some advocates said they also feared that hate criminals were emboldened by more forgiving law enforcement policies, including the state’s bail reform law and new lenient sentencing guidelines implemented by new Manhattan District Attorney Alvin Bragg.
“People are afraid because we know [Bragg] is going to let violent criminals go free and Asians around the city will be the victims,” said Phil Wong, 55, a Queens businessman and political activist.
Bragg told reporters Saturday afternoon that New Yorkers would not have to worry about Martial — an ex-con who was released from state prison last year after a two-year stint for robbery — getting set free to allegedly kill again. He was charged with murder Saturday night, police said.
“He’s been on medication for over 20 years and in and out of mental hospitals in New York,” a woman who identified herself as Martial’s sister, Josette, told The Post.
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