Man Kicked 78-Year-Old Lady On Subway For Threatening His Family, Fiancée Claims

The fiancée of a Yonkers, New York, man, who was arrested Saturday for attacking a 78-year-old homeless woman on a Bronx train, said the attack took place after the woman threatened to stab them.

Marc Gomez, 36, was taken into custody Saturday in connection with the encounter that took place aboard a New York City subway train March 10. The CCTV footage of the incident, released by the New York Police Department on Friday, showed the suspect punching and kicking the woman several times in the head and body. The victim suffered cuts and swelling to her face.

Though sources told CBS Local on Saturday that the attack was unprovoked, the suspect’s wife-to–be, Alicia Cox, told the New York Post on Sunday that the victim had threatened to stab them and her 11-year-old daughter.

Cox said the incident took place after Gomez told her daughter to sit beside the victim on the subway.

“As soon as my daughter lays down, the lady goes, ‘Oh, what are you doing?’ So Marc goes to her and says, ‘Excuse me?” Cox said, adding “He turns to her and says, ‘Ma’am I’m not bothering you, I’m not trying to do anything to you. We’re just trying to get home, my daughter is trying to sleep.’ And she goes, ‘Oh,I don’t care, I’ll punch her in the head.’”

The woman continued to threaten them even after they moved to a different seat.

“She goes, ‘I’ll stab you, I’ll kill you.’ And he (Gomez) goes, ‘Who you talking to to?’ Because there’s nobody there, nobody’s over there,” she said, adding "First of all I’m getting upset and he (Gomez) sees me getting upset. So he says, ‘Babe, calm down.’”

Cox said when they were about to leave the train, the woman said, “‘Oh yeah, I’m going to stab you.' I don’t know what she had in her hand but I remember seeing something shiny. I don’t know if it was a knife but I grabbed my daughter’s hand real tight.”

“When she threatened to stab all of us once again, it’s like he (Gomez) snapped because he sensed us right behind him and he snapped,” Cox added.

Describing Gomez as a “sweetheart,” Cox said they agree that he made a bad decision.

Gomez was charged with “second and third-degree assault and harassment,” and was held on $30,000 bond/$15,000 cash. He was scheduled to appear in court March 29.