spat on a woman<\/a> as she was entering the station.<\/p>\n\u201cShe told me the lady was in so much shock that she just looked at him with disgust and ran down the stairs,\u201d she added. \u201cThe spit landed on her pants.\u201d<\/p>\n
When her friend yelled at the man, Melanie said, \u201che just stared at her, which kind of made her feel like she couldn\u2019t have been next.\u201d<\/p>\n
One local said he has spent much of the last year discussing the attacks with community members, police, Brooklyn Councilwoman Shahana Hanif\u00a0(D-39), and Assemblyman Robert Carroll (D-Brooklyn). He took up the cause, he said, after his wife was spat on at the 7th Avenue station last spring.<\/p>\n
Straphangers and Brooklyn Councilwoman Shahana Hanif are frustrated by the ongoing attacks and lack of action. Helayne Seidman<\/p>\n
Around 3 p.m., when schools were getting out, the resident\u2019s wife was spat on by a man whom the couple had repeatedly noticed lurking in the station since 2020, sometimes with a pit bull or panhandling.<\/p>\n
\u201cShe wasn\u2019t sure if he\u2019d spit on her, but when I looked at her dress \u2026 \u00a0there was clearly spit,\u201d he recalled. <\/p>\n
The resident said he has since spoken with Hanif, police officials, and Carroll about his concerns \u2014 but claimed that the lawmakers and cops have expressed that their hands are tied.<\/p>\n
\u201cI\u2019ve pushed every single button I could push,\u201d he said. \u201cNobody wants to do anything about it, and it makes me really feel a lot less hope for public safety in the city because this is not a complicated problem.<\/p>\n
\u201cYou\u2019ll see plenty of instances where this guy threatens, yells at, chases, spits on women, and nobody that I\u2019ve been able to harass or talk to has been able to do anything about it,\u201d he added. \u201cThis is a middle-class, upper-middle-class neighborhood with tons of resources. If we can\u2019t solve a simple problem here, I don\u2019t know how we can solve it anywhere else.\u201d<\/p>\n
The NYPD confirmed several instances of spit-attacks in the two subway stations this February \u2014 including a woman who reported being spat on her head by a man during morning rush hour in the 15th Street Prospect Park Station.<\/p>\n
On Feb 15, 2026, a 46-year-old woman also reported that a man spoke to her and attempted to spit on her as she walked down to the 7 Avenue\/9 Street train station, police added. <\/p>\n
One individual, Norbert Williams, 33, has been busted multiple times for similar incidents at the two Park Slope train stations, cops said \u2014 but he has not been tied to the latest attacks by officials.<\/p>\n
Williams was busted as recently as July 15, 2025, after police said he allegedly targeted the same 24-year-old woman in separate incidents at the 15th Street Prospect Park station in February and June 2025, according to the NYPD.<\/p>\n
On Feb. 4, 2025, Williams allegedly spat at the woman in the mezzanine area and chased her. On June 6, 2025, he also allegedly approached her and spoke to her in a menacing tone, cops said. <\/p>\n
He was charged with harassment and stalking and ultimately granted supervised release as the charges were not bail eligible, sources added. <\/p>\n
Williams also allegedly spat at a 28-year-old woman at the 15th Street Prospect Park station on May 26, 2024, police said.<\/p>\n
As she followed him and tried to take a photo, he allegedly punched her in the left side of her face and caused minor scratches to her face and hand, cops said. He was then cuffed and hit with assault charges on June 27, 2024.<\/p>\n
The NYPD confirmed several instances of spit-attacks in the two subway stations this February. Helayne Seidman<\/p>\n
Williams has at least 15 previous arrests, with prior cases involving forcible touching, assault, reckless endangerment, terroristic threats, and multiple transit offenses, sources added. <\/p>\n
Multiple straphangers have reported to cops that they were followed, spat on, and harassed by an unidentified man after refusing to give him money. <\/p>\n
A worker who frequents the 15th Street station often said he\u2019s heard many stories about \u201c7th Ave Spitter\u201d and noted that he often picks on \u201csoft targets.\u201d<\/p>\n
\u201cHe don\u2019t pick on nobody healthy. He picks on women, children, or somebody decrepit,\u201d the worker, who wished not to be identified, said. \u201cHe knows what he\u2019s doing, and it\u2019s a cowardly thing to do, because you\u2019re picking on women.\u201d<\/p>\n
One father who walks past the station daily with his daughter frequently sees the well-known spitter and fears it\u2019s only a matter of time before the harassment escalates. <\/p>\n
\u201cSomeone is going to get hurt. I can feel it,\u201d he said. <\/p>\n
\u201cI\u2019m just a middle-aged white dude, and he\u2019s highly preferential towards targeting females, especially when alone. He just asks me for money.<\/p>\n
\u201cEvery day I have to go by him, escorting my little girl to and from school, you don\u2019t know what kind of headspace he\u2019s in or what can happen,\u201d he said. \u201cThis guy is a serial stalker, and nobody wants to do anything about it.\u201d<\/p>\n
In a statement late February, Hanif wrote that her office met with NYPD transit officials and the Brooklyn <\/a>District Attorney regarding the serial spitter after an influx of \u201cfrightening\u201d reports from primarily female straphangers.<\/p>\n\u201cThere has been a pattern of incidents over time involving the same individual. When this person was receiving court-mandated mental health services last year, reported incidents decreased significantly,\u201d Hanif wrote. <\/p>\n
After the court-mandated services ended for the person \u2014 who was not named in the statement \u2014 in December 2025, reports of spitting incidents increased again, the councilwoman said. <\/p>\n
Hanif, however, said officials have not been able to nab the man because spitting is technically often treated as a \u201cviolation-level\u201d offense, and \u201cthreats, physical contact, or other conduct\u201d are often needed to raise the charge. <\/p>\n
Officials have not been able to nab the man because spitting is technically often treated as a \u201cviolation-level\u201d offense. Paul Martinka<\/p>\n
\u201cLaw enforcement and prosecutors rely on formal reports and evidence so the District Attorney can evaluate potential charges and courts can determine next steps,\u201d Hanif wrote, urging straphangers to continue making detailed reports to police about any incidents. <\/p>\n
\u201cEveryone deserves to travel safely and with dignity. I will continue to press every available enforcement and intervention option with our agency partners,\u201d she wrote. <\/p>\n
Neither Hanif nor Carroll\u2019s office responded to The Post\u2019s requests for additional comment. <\/p>\n
In a statement, the NYPD told The Post that officers will continue to patrol the 15th Street\u2013Prospect Park\u00a0and 7 Avenue\/9 Street subway stations as the complaints persist. <\/p>\n
\u201cOfficers will continue to\u00a0patrol the\u00a015th Street\u2013Prospect Park\u00a0and 7 Avenue\/9 Street subway stations, and the impacted transit districts have been alerted about these incidents,\u201d an NYPD spokesperson said.<\/p>\n
\u201cThe NYPD takes all reports of harassment seriously and urges anyone who experiences or witnesses an incident to call\u00a0911\u00a0for an immediate response.\u201d<\/p>\n
Additional reporting by Estrella McDaniel<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"A \u201cserial spitter\u201d who has been terrorizing women for years at two Brooklyn subway stations is leaving commuters…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":210584,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[8],"tags":[303,83274,57,9,56,63,65,64,103,8005,1687,58],"class_list":{"0":"post-210583","1":"post","2":"type-post","3":"status-publish","4":"format-standard","5":"has-post-thumbnail","7":"category-new-york-city","8":"tag-crime","9":"tag-harrassment","10":"tag-metro","11":"tag-new-york","12":"tag-ny","13":"tag-nyc","14":"tag-nyc-headlines","15":"tag-nyc-news","16":"tag-nypd","17":"tag-park-slope","18":"tag-subways","19":"tag-us-news"},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ny\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/210583","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ny\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ny\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ny\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ny\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=210583"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ny\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/210583\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ny\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/210584"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ny\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=210583"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ny\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=210583"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ny\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=210583"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}