Manhattan subway shover’s racial epithet a mystery to woman he pushed to the tracks

https://www.nydailynews.com/new-york/nyc-crime/ny-woman-kicked-manhattan-train-tracks-20200730-2deiqqsf4jfazcncbojpnntuuy-story.html


By Catarina Lamelas Moura, Rocco Parascandola and Chelsia Rose Marcius
New York Daily News |
Jul 30, 2020 at 6:33 PM



A mugger’s racial epithet fell on deaf ears when he used it against a woman he shoved off a Manhattan subway platform, said the victim’s daughter.

Zvezdana Drazila, 68, did not know what her attacker meant when he called her a “cracker,” her daughter, Dana, told the Daily News.

•••••

Police described the suspect as between 40 and 50 years old, with a dark complexion. He was last seen wearing all-dark clothing. Police have not said whether they are investigating the incident as a hate crime.

•••••

Drazila — who for 20 years has been working for the same family as a housekeeper — was on her way home to Flushing, Queens, at around 2:10 pm Monday when the stranger approached.

“She says she saw the man go past her, but she didn’t think anything if it. And then she just felt somebody push her to the ground and then he kept kicking her and stomping on her as she held on to (a) pole,” Dana said.

“When she finally couldn’t hold on ... she let go and and he shoved her into the tracks. She fell, she hit her head on the tracks,” the daughter said.

The victim dropped her phone on the platform. The suspect grabbed it before he ran off.

Two good Samaritans helped Drazila from the westbound tracks back onto the subway platform. Medics took her to Bellevue Hospital, where on Thursday she was in serious but stable condition, police said.

Drazila suffered five broken bones in her spine, a broken rib and a large knot on her head, Dana said. There was no train entering the station at the time.

“I’m not even going to mention her emotional state right now. She’s traumatized, as we all are,” the daughter said.

“She’s afraid to leave the house. She’s afraid to go anywhere....She is taking care of my sick father and his parents. They live together. She was the breadwinner in the house. How is she supposed to go back to work now?”

Dana said at first she thought her mother’s attacker was just after the phone. But police later found the phone nearby — leaving the family wondering about the man’s true motive.

“He didn’t take the phone, he didn’t take her wallet(...) he didn’t take anything from her,” she said. “Now we’re thinking (he went after her) just because she was white.”

Drazila — who emigrated from Serbia with her family in the 1960s in search of a better life — told her daughter she would not have survived if the good Samaritans hadn’t pulled her off the tracks.

“She just said, ‘Thank God for those people.’ She wishes she knew who they were to personally thank them. Because if it wasn’t for them she could have been killed,” Dana said.

•••••

https://youtu.be/xiiLZT1nkxo