NYC subway menace with boxcutter attacks women before turning weapon on good Samaritan: sources

An unhinged stranger menaced two women on a Manhattan subway train – then pulled a box cutter on a good Samaritan who stepped in, snarling “I cut you now,” sources said.

Diego Morales, 37 – who has 16 prior busts – boarded a downtown No. 1 train at the 137th Street-City College station around 2 p.m. Saturday and stormed up to two women who were already inside, pulling one of them by the hair, according to law enforcement sources. 

That’s when a 50-year-old bystander stepped in and told Morales to stop, the sources said.

The older man went to sit down again – but it wasn’t long before Morales approached him, threatening, “Yo te corto ahora,” which means, “I cut you now” in Spanish, the sources said.

The victim waited for Morales to turn his back as the train doors opened at the 103rd Street station – before shoving him out of the car and causing him to fall, hitting his face on the ground, cops and sources said. 

The fast-acting Samaritan held the injured man down on the ground until police arrived, police said.

Morales was cuffed at the scene and charged with menacing and criminal possession of a weapon, cops said. He was also hospitalized for a cut on his face, the sources said.

His previous arrests included raps for criminal possession of a weapon, menacing a police officer and criminal trespass, sources said. 

In his last arrest, from July 7 on the Upper West Side, he is accused of swinging a box cutter in the direction of a victim he claimed was taking a photo of him, according to the sources.

Back in November 2022, Morales had been allegedly harassing people on the street before turning his attention to one man who told him to back off and get away from him, the sources said. 

But instead of complying, Morales whipped out a knife and scraped the ground with it, in an attempt to intimidate the victim, the sources said.

He was also arrested in 2019 for allegedly attempting to strike a police officer with a metal wrench after the cop booted him from a Manhattan subway station for disorderly behavior, according to the sources.

In 2018, he was nabbed for grand larceny from an Upper West Side store, the sources said. 

And back in 2017, he allegedly snatched a phone out of a woman’s hand when he became jealous that she was talking to her friends and planning to hang out, according to the sources.

He then allegedly grabbed the scarf around her neck and choked her with it, the sources said. 

He was also arrested in 2016 for criminal possession of a knife, according to the sources.

The latest crime comes amid after a spate of recent violent attacks in the transit system, including the deadly shooting on a crowded train car in Brooklyn last month.

Last week, an innocent straphanger was allegedly shoved in front a train in Harlem by a 24-year-old Bronx man with a history of mental illness.