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<\/p>\nCHELSEA, Manhattan (WABC) — The man charged with murder in the fatal shoving of a 76-year-old man at a Chelsea subway station was released from psychiatric hold hours earlier, police say.<\/p>\n
Police say their suspect, 32-year-old Rhamell Burke, came up behind the victim, 76-year-old Ross Falzone, and pushed him down the 18th Street station stairs just after 9:30 p.m. on Thursday.<\/p>\n
Officers found Falzone unconscious and unresponsive. Officials say he suffered a traumatic brain injury, a fractured spine and a fractured rib and was pronounced dead at Bellevue Hospital just before 3 a.m. on Friday.<\/p>\n
Police say the shoving appeared to be unprovoked, and the death is being investigated as a homicide.<\/p>\n
They also revealed that Burke had been picked up by police hours earlier outside an East Side police precinct.<\/p>\n
Officers encountered him acting erratically outside the 17th Precinct stationhouse on East 51st Street at around 3:30 p.m.<\/p>\n
Police say he pulled a stick from the garbage and held it as he approached the officers.<\/p>\n
One officer defused the situation, an interaction captured on his body camera and reviewed by police officials.<\/p>\n
Burke was taken to Bellevue Hospital in a police cruiser, arriving at 3:39 p.m. He underwent a psychiatric evaluation at the hospital and was released later that afternoon.<\/p>\n
Detectives say Burke shoved Falzone to his death about five hours after his release from Bellevue.<\/p>\n
Burke has had four prior arrests since February, including for assault on a Port Authority police officer and for assault of a stranger, for which he was on supervised release.<\/p>\n
In the wake of the attack, Mayor Zohran Mamdani announced an investigation into Bellevue’s handling of the person of interest involved in the attack on Falzone.<\/p>\n
“New Yorkers deserve answers. That is why I’ve directed NYC Health + Hospitals to conduct both an immediate investigation on what steps should have been taken to prevent this tragedy and a comprehensive review of their psychiatric evaluation and discharge protocols,” Mamdani said.<\/p>\n
According to authorities, Falzone lived on the Upper West Side.<\/p>\n
Eyewitness News spoke with his sister, Donna Falzone, on Friday.<\/p>\n
<\/p>\n
“He wouldn’t hurt anybody. He’s a bag of bones. He’s not even 100 pounds,” she said.<\/p>\n
Donna Falzone said she had just celebrated her birthday in Manhattan with her brother and was planning another trip from Pennsylvania to visit him when she got the horrifying news.<\/p>\n
“There’s no amount of anger that we can express, and shock,” she said. “I mean, to get a call like that at 4 in the morning, you know, just, you know, to find out your brother’s minding his own business, three witnesses, and push down the steps and left for dead.”<\/p>\n
She said her brother had a doctorate degree from Columbia University.<\/p>\n
“He’s a retired special education teacher, and a great guy, great brother and uncle,” Donna Falzone said.<\/p>\n
As for Burke, he was arrested for the subway shove on Friday at Penn Station, on the northbound C and E line platform, around 3:30 p.m.<\/p>\n
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