'Our city needs major help': Mother of five brutally assaulted on NYC subway slams Mayor Eric Adams
Warning: Graphic content, readers’ discretion advised
NEW YORK CITY, NEW YORK: A mother-of-five has issued a desperate plea to Mayor Eric Adams after she was brutally assaulted by a homeless man at a Queens subway station recently.
Elizabeth Gomes, a JFK Airport security guard, was on her way to work early Tuesday, September 20, at the Howard Beach subway station when she was attacked by the vagrant, later identified by police as ex-convict Waheed Foster, who killed his grandmother in 2014 and was still on parole for a 2010 assault at the time of the attack. Gomes, whose eyes were swollen shut from the horrific assault, declared, "Our city needs major help."
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“We’re going through a lot here,’’ Gomes, 33, told the New York Post. “I remember hearing that they would have cops posted on platforms, riding the trains, cops down in a subway. Mayor Adams said especially in the subway,’’ she said, adding, “The mayor said we would have much more cops in the subway and the cops specifically would be patrolling the subways because that’s where the worst of the crimes we are having. Especially at places like Howard Beach station."
“There was no one. Why no protection there?” she asked, referring to her September 20 assault. “Obviously, the government or nobody is doing anything for us. When we’re out there, we’re by ourselves, we’re fighting these battles by ourselves, and what they do, they go try to help other countries that have nothing to do with what we’re going through in our own place.”
When asked who she was referring to by "they," Gomes replied, "The mayor, the governor." "Like Eric Adams, our mayor, going to Puerto Rico,’’ she said, insisting that it was the Big Apple that needed "major help" because of what it's "going through." She and her husband, Clement Tucker, told the outlet how she wandered around the station for nearly 20 minutes looking for help following the attack. They said the MTA worker who was supposed to be in the subway booth at the time was on a bathroom break. An MTA official stated that both the MTA and Port Authority man the booth. “The booth agent on the New York City Transit half of the booth at Howard Beach was on what we call a ‘comfort break’ from 5:10 a.m. to 5:19 a.m.,” the official told the Post.
An NYC man pummeled a woman in a subway station.
— Andrew Pollack (@AndrewPollackFL) September 27, 2022
The man had 7 prior arrests and killed his grandmother in the 1990s.
Woke prosecutors and politicians let this man be on the streets. pic.twitter.com/rK4AZy8puk
Gomes said she was "very surprised" by the lack of security, including law enforcement. “They’re normally there. There’s always some sort of protection at Howard Beach station," she said. "I’m used to seeing Port Authority people there. I’m used to seeing, yes, [Port Authority cops] is there." Her embattled husband added, “There was no security in the booth. There were no cops. The person who should have been in the booth was in the bathroom. They came out 20 minutes after she was attacked. She was walking around, and there was no one there to help her." He added, “Look at my wife’s eyes! She can’t see nothing [sic] out of her eyes.” He said she could lose sight in her right eye and has to undergo more surgery on it.
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“I’m scared to even leave my house," a tearful Gomes said. “I don’t even want to take the train. You know, I love my job so much, and part of me, like, doesn’t want to go back because I’m scared. My life has changed. Everything changed,” the distraught mum -- whose kids are reportedly aged 13, 12, 9, 8, and 3 -- added. The 33-year-old mother, who had been working at the Queens airport for about 10 years, recalled how she was assaulted around 5.15 am on a fateful morning, with her attacker ranting about Satan. Authorities said Foster was previously convicted of beating his 82-year-old grandmother to death when he was 14, as well as stabbing his 21-year-old sister with a screwdriver.