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The blade blitz plaguing the subway system is not cutting in Bill Bratton’s favor.
An hour after New York’s top cop tried to minimize fears of skyrocketing slashings and stabbings, a 30-year-old straphanger on a No. 3 train in Brooklyn became the city’s 10th victim this year, authorities said.
Cops quickly cuffed the alleged attacker, 37-year-old schizophrenic Stephen Brathwaite, who has joined a growing list of unhinged riders accused of cutting people they just met.
Brathwaite was arrested Monday shortly after he whipped out a folding knife and sliced open the victim’s chin as the two stood toe-to-toe between cars on a train rumbling away from the Pennsylvania Ave./Livonia Ave. station in East New York.
MAN THREATENS TO ‘CHOP UP’ WOMAN IN LATEST SUBWAY ATTACK
An hour earlier, Bratton had downplayed the rise in blade attacks — a mix of slashings and stabbings — on the rails during a radio interview, calling them an “aberration.”
“This is New York and occasionally the media and police get focused on a series of incidents, and that’s what happened here,” Bratton said during an interview on the John Gambling radio program, “The Answer” on 970 AM.
“In the subway system, the issue of concern that we have, that is the most constant concern, the more significant concern in terms of actual numbers …is pickpocketing and theft of electronic equipment,” Bratton said, adding that the department was taking a look at the string of knife attacks.
BRATTON BELIEVES RASH OF SUBWAY SLASHINGS OVERHYPED
“Certainly, assaults, particularly the slashings, the stabbings, will always be a high priority,” he said.
Overall, the city has seen a nearly 20% jump in slashings and stabbings both above and below ground as of Feb. 1 — with 365 incidents this year compared with 305 during the same period last year.
There were seven slashings and three stabbings in the subway system as of Monday night, police sources said, compared with three slashings and two stabbings in the same time period last year.
GUARDIAN ANGELS PATROL SUBWAYS AFTER UPTICK IN SLASHINGS
Nearly all the incidents have been a result of fights between riders.
The latest attack began on the station’s platform about 12:40 p.m. Monday, when Brathwaite was pacing back and forth and staring at his victim and his victim’s friend.
When the victim asked Brathwaite what he was looking at, Brathwaite splattered coffee on the man’s back.
“Want to fight?” Brathwaite asked, according to court records.
When the train arrived, Brathwaite and the victim got onto separate cars — but Brathwaite sought his victim out, police sources said. As the two met again, Brathwaite lunged at his victim with a folding knife — cutting him. The victim suffered minor injuries.
71-YEAR-OLD WOMAN SLASHED IN FACE WHILE RIDING D TRAIN
Cops apprehended Brathwaite at the Crown Heights/Utica Ave. station, officials said. His knife was recovered on the train at the Nevins St. station.
The attack was one of three slashings to take place on the rails since Sunday.
Brathwaite, of Brooklyn, was ordered held on $250,000 bail after he was charged with assault, menacing and weapons possession.
To prove the subways are safe, Bratton rode the rails last Thursday, saying the Police Department “will be putting some additional resources in the subways …to reassure the riding public that they are safe.”
With Christina Carrega-Woodby, Edgar Sandoval, Rocco Parascandola