Neighborhood man questioned after subway rider’s death on tracks

New York police were questioning a man Tuesday in connection with the death of a subway rider who witnesses said was pushed onto the tracks and crushed by an oncoming train after an apparent altercation on the platform.

The identity of the man was not released, but police said late in the evening that he had implicated himself in the attack. No charges were expected to be filed before Wednesday.

Part of the incident Monday was caught on camera, and both the video and photographs of the alleged pusher were circulated across the city.

Early Tuesday, police at the midtown station at 49th Street and 7th Avenue, where the death occurred, handed out fliers with pictures of the suspect. Later in the day, police said they had picked up for questioning a 30-year-old man who was a regular in the area, sometimes working with street vendors on the sidewalks just blocks from the subway station.

Witnesses have indicated the man who pushed 58-year-old Ki-Suck Han to his death appeared to be disturbed and had been muttering and frightening others on the platform as they waited for a train about 12:30 p.m. Monday.

Han, who New York Police Commissioner Raymond Kelly has said was headed to the Korean consulate to renew his passport, apparently confronted the man and told him to leave others alone.

Video taken by another person on the platform showed the man yelling at Han to leave him alone.

At a news briefing, Mayor Michael R. Bloomberg said it appeared the man who had pushed Han had “a psychiatric problem.”

Han, he said, “tried to break up a fight or something and paid for it with his life.”

[Updated, 8:53 p.m. Dec. 4: Police said late Tuesday that the suspect had implicated himself in the crime. In addition, an earlier version of this post spelled the victim’s name as Ki-Suk Han. Actually, it’s Ki-Suck Han.]

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