MIDTOWN (PIX11) — Family and friends of a man murdered Saturday inside a busy midtown subway station are speaking out.
They say 26-year-old Darrel Anthony Rodriguez was deeply embedded in the University Heights community where he grew up.
His childhood friends are devastated.
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He’s a nice kid, bro. I don’t know why they did that to him,” one man who didn’t want to give his name said, with tears streaming down his face. “I knew him when he was a young boy. His father used to own the barber shop. I miss him.”
Rodriguez worked security at a hotel in midtown close to the 7th Avenue, 53rd Street subway station where he was shot in the chest Saturday afternoon. Paramedics rushed to save him, but he was pronounced dead at Bellevue Hospital.
“I wouldn’t think it would be somebody I know and when I seen it on the news, I didn’t think it would be right here,” childhood friend Devante Hall said.
Rodriguez had two brothers, including Derick, his fraternal twin who now lives in Texas and enlisted in the Army.
Derick told The New York Times, “It’s like a black hole in your heart,” adding, “It is grief, but it is something deeper because this is your half.”
The NYPD is still searching for the suspect, seen in surveillance pictures in a red tracksuit and black face covering. They say he should be considered armed and dangerous. Police say the two men got into an argument on the platform shortly after noon. The gunfire set off chaos as hundreds rushed to get out.
“We started running and all the other people started following suit,” Christopher Myron said. He was on a Queens-bound E train as the shots rang out.
Saturday’s murder is the seventh homicide of the year in New York City transit this year. That’s more than the four people killed in all of 2025.
“Honestly, before that I thought it was fairly safe,” Myron said. “After that, to be honest, a little nervous to get on the subway right now.”
AN NYPD spokesperson told PIX11 News that 2025 was the safest year on record in transit, with 2026 shaping up to be the second safest year.
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