Random UES Subway Slashing Update: Arrest Made, Cops Say

UPPER EAST SIDE, NY — A man has been arrested after a series of unprovoked subway slashings that left three women bloodied, police said.

Kemal Rideout, 28, was charged with three counts of felony assault, according to police officials.

"Nobody should feel afraid when going about their business in New York," said MTA head Janno Lieber at a Tuesday press conference. "As I always say: for New Yorkers, transit is like air and water we need it to survive, it needs to be safe and it needs to feel safe."

Lieber said that despite the "unnerving" random attacks, that subway crime is rapidly decreasing compared to last year.

"The NYPD has subway riders' backs," Lieber said, as he thanked the department for deploying 1,000 more officers to the transit network in recent months.

Rideout has four prior arrests for assault, attempted rape, forcible touching and criminal mischief all in upstate New York — including two in his hometown of Norwich, NY, said NYPD chief of detectives James Essig.

Officials said Rideout was busted after skipping the fare on an MTA bus.

"Fare evasion enforcement leads to apprehensions clearly and especially in this instance," Lieber claimed.

Rideout's stabbing spree began on Sunday inside the 86th Street-Lexington Avenue subway station, when he slashed a 19-year-old woman — a Hunter College student — and a 48-year-old woman, police said.

Both were slashed from behind in the leg.

Not even 20 minutes later, Rideout then slashed a 28-year-old woman on a downtown 4 train as it approached the Brooklyn Bridge-City Hall station.

All three women were brought to nearby hospitals, with the third victim reportedly requiring a tourniquet for her wounds, according to the New York Post.

The 19-year-old victim told reporters that she was on the train getting a cake for Father's Day on Sunday, and ended up celebrating inside her hospital room with her family after getting 19 stitches.

“My dad came, my sister, my mom, we were all at the hospital together,” she told the Daily News. “That was the way we celebrated Father’s Day.”