Yesterday a Twitter user who calls himself Platano Man, real name Juan Ayala, posted a video of a woman, later identified as 40-year-old Anna Lushchinskaya, attacking other passengers and shouting racist insults while on a crowded subway train in New York. This morning the NYPD Transit police tweeted that the woman in question had been arrested and charged with felony assault. The incident happened around 7:50 am on Tuesday morning.
Ayala started filming the woman as she shouted “F**k off!” at another female passenger on the train. His first clip, which has been viewed more than 5 million times, shows the incident escalating from seemingly unprompted outbursts to attempts by Lushchinskaya to kick the other woman and hit her with an umbrella and her keys. Other passengers try to keep the women apart, but appear reluctant to put their hands on Lushchinskaya to stop her.
In the second clip below, the action picks up where the first clip leaves off. Lushchinskaya makes a few more attempts to hit the 2nd woman and then makes a phone call, apparently dialing 911. At this point, she refers to the other woman as a “f**king ch**k” using a slur for Asian people. The whole car reacts to this and Ayala shouts back “Your white privilege ain’t working over here, f**k out of here with that s**t.” Another passenger adds that Lushchinskaya has “some severe mental issues.”
“You already know she voted for Trump,” Ayala says.
— PL∆T∆NO M∆N™ (@PlatanoMan) December 12, 2018
Ayala’s videos cut off at this point but another passenger uploaded his (or is it her?) video of the incident showing what happened next. After a few more exchanges with the other passengers, Lushchinskaya winds up in a confrontation with Ayala who has gotten out of his seat and tells her he is filming for World Star Hip Hop. She spits at him and then calls him “Mohammed Atta,” the name of one of the 9/11 hijackers.
As the two of them continue arguing, she knocks Ayala’s phone out of his hand. At that point, he pulls her down to the ground and other passengers have to convince him he’s taking things too far. When he agrees to let her up, she spits on him again and round two of the wrestling match begins.
Once the train finally reached the next stop, Ayala detained her until the police arrived:
Then she tried me so I had to detain her until the cops showed up 🤦🏾♂️ pic.twitter.com/C3UybusAxa
— PL∆T∆NO M∆N™ (@PlatanoMan) December 12, 2018
The NY Post reports that Lushchinskaya was involved in another assault on the same train:
Meanwhile, authorities say that on June 28, Lushchinskaya was involved in another subway incident on the same train.
In that case, Lushchinskaya allegedly sprayed an unknown liquid at a 36-year-old man on a northbound D train at the 36th Street stop, police said. She was charged with assault.
This woman clearly has some serious issues. I won’t speculate what those are but her behavior is not normal. This incident really shouldn’t have anything to do with politics but the fact that the person filming it connected her behavior to voting for Trump shows nothing is immune to being immediately politicized these days.
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