Crown Heights Man Shot Dead In Queens Subway Station: Cops

CROWN HEIGHTS, BROOKLYN — A 24-year-old Crown Heights man was shot dead after a fight in a Queens subway station on Monday in what is at least the third shooting in the transit system this year, according to police.

Marcus Bethea — identified by police late Monday — was standing near the token booth at the Parsons Boulevard-Archer Avenue station inside Jamaica Center around 4:30 p.m. when he and another man got into an argument that quickly turned physical, according to police.

"During the course of that fight the suspect pulled out a firearm and fired several rounds, which struck the victim in his torso," NYPD Transit Chief Jason Wilcox said in a press conference.

Bethea, who is from Ralph Avenue, was rushed to the hospital, where he died of his injuries, police said.

A gun was found at the station after the shooting, police said. Police didn't know Monday what had caused the argument or if Bethea knew the shooter, detectives said at the press conference.

The Queens homicide comes as officials work to tamp down violence in the city's subway system, including a mass shooting on a train at Sunset Park's 36th Street station earlier this month. A 27-year-old was also recently shot inside Brooklyn's Broadway Junction station.

Such incidents are usually unusual in the subway, Wilcox said.

"There have been a couple of incidents this year, which are being investigated, but gunshots in the transit system is a very rare scenario," he said.

Questions continue to mount as to whether thousands of officers deployed to stations as part of Mayor Eric Adams' Subway Safety Plan have been effective at reducing the crime spike.

Aside from shootings, at least three people have been killed by trains in New York City stations in the last week. Two people were also stabbed in a Harlem subway station just days after the Sunset Park attack.

There were no officers at the token booth in Jamaica Center on Monday despite the NYPD making 100,000 more visits to stations since January, according to Wilcox. It is unknown whether there were cops elsewhere in the station at the time of the shooting, he said.

"There is a significant effort on the part of ... the NYPD to enhance and robustly build up a visible presence in the transit system," Wilcox said.