Woman Maces Attacker Who Stabbed Boyfriend And Tried To Sit On Her Lap

A woman maced a man on a train near Manhattan, in the New York subway, after he physically assaulted her boyfriend and tried to sit on her lap.

The incident took place at about 11:05 p.m. Wednesday when the assailant engaged in an argument with the couple after boarding a northbound train on the Upper West Side. As soon as he boarded the train, the assailant engaged in an argument with the couple, as per Patch.

Moments later, the unidentified attacker, described as an older man, tried to sit on the woman's lap and hit her boyfriend, 26-year-old Sammi Tovar, in the head, police said, according to NY Post.

He then took out a kitchen knife and attempted to stab Tovar. As Tovar tried to escape the knife, he got cut in the left leg and hand, police added, as per the outlet.

Amid this tussle, the woman sprayed mace at the attacker in an attempt to protect her boyfriend. The attacker fled the train and escaped on another train at the West 72nd Street and Broadway station.

Tovar, who is a nutritionist living in Manhattan for two months now, was taken to a hospital in stable condition, cops said. His girlfriend, who did not want to reveal her identity, didn't suffer any injuries in the incident.

"He showed no signs of stopping after getting my leg," Tovar told NY Post. "He had this weird look in his eyes."

Tovar explained that the argument began when the assailant tried to invade his girlfriend's space "in a very explicit way."

"I told him we weren't looking for any trouble, to give her her space," he recalled. "But he was trying to escalate it. I grabbed the pole again and he walks around, comes back and squares up. So I squared up."

"I'm a boxer but the moment I squared up, he took something from his coat. He was showing it around the subway car like 'oh look what I have here.' He made a big display of it," Tovar added.

Cops had made no arrests in the matter as of Thursday morning. Tovar's girlfriend expressed reluctance in riding the train again after the incident.

This is the second consecutive week an attack has taken place on the New York subway. An unrelated incident took place on the largest U.S. transit system last week when a bearded suspect shoved a 26-year-old man in front of an oncoming train in an unprovoked attack. Witnesses helped the victim back to the platform but he sustained injuries to his legs and was treated at a nearby hospital.