PARK SLOPE — A Park Slope woman was beaten up after confronting a group of rowdy teens on the G train and asking them not to curse, police say.
Amanda, 21, who asked that only her first name be used for fear of retaliation, told DNAinfo New York the attack occurred after she asked a group of schoolkids to stop saying "f---" in front of two small children on the train.
"I've never been hit like that," said Amanda, a Park Slope native who was riding the train at about 4:30 p.m. on Sept. 10 when she was attacked. "It was surreal. I thought I was going to die...I didn't think they were going to jump me."
A 14-year-old girl was arrested on charges of assault and disorderly conduct, police said.
The attack unfolded as Amanda was riding the G train back from a job interview and about eight students with book bags boarded at Smith/Ninth Street. The group seemed riled up after just leaving school, Amanda said, and at first she tried to ignore them, thinking they would eventually settle down.
Then she heard the kids boasting about a fight they had just had. "They had just gotten back from a fight and they made it clear to everyone on the train,” Amanda said. “I felt like they were trying to scare people on the train, like they thought they were big and bad.”
The students' loud talking woke up two young children who were snoozing in their father's lap, near where Amanda was sitting. After the dad asked the group to keep it down, Amanda, who has ridden the subway since she was a young child, decided to chime in too.
"I was just like, 'That's not right guys, you can't curse in front of children. Be more respectful,'" Amanda recounted.
Four of the girls in the group then leapt up from their seats and confronted Amanda, sticking their fingers in her face, saying 'Who the F are you?' and calling her "bitch," she said. For several minutes, they egged her on, trying to get her to fight them, Amanda remembers.
When she said, "You guys are like 12 years old, I'm not going to fight you," some people on the train laughed, because the situation seemed almost silly, Amanda said.
Eventually she got so fed up that she cursed back at the girls — something she's not proud of, she said. When the train pulled into the Seventh Avenue stop, Amanda started to get off the train and three of the girls shoved her.
She admits she pushed one of them back, and the group quickly overpowered her, dragging her down by her hair. The girls then kicked her repeatedly in the head as she lay curled in a fetal position on the floor of the G train car, Amanda said.
"My body went numb," she remembers. "I didn't know what was happening. My vision went out and I heard a ringing...I think if they had had more time, they would have definitely killed me."
Amanda's not sure how, but somehow she ended up on the platform outside the train car. She had lost one shoe and the father of the two kids who had been sitting near her was prying her attackers off of her.
Police who happened to be nearby quickly apprehended the three. One was handcuffed and two others were led away by police, Amanda said. She was taken by ambulance to Lutheran Medical Center. The blows to her head left her with a concussion, a doctor told her.
Amanda said she's been nervous and jumpy since the attack. When she worked up the courage to take the subway again about a week after the incident, she rode in the conductor's car and carried pepper spray in her pocket.
She said she'll be minding her own business from now on when she's on the subway.
"I think it's a new generation now, where kids are out of control and do what they want," she said.
