A 14-year-old was killed and an 18-year-old was injured Friday after both fell from a J train as it crossed from the Williamsburg Bridge into Manhattan just before 6 p.m., in the latest tragedy tied to subway surfing. One person fell from the train onto the tracks on the bridge, while the other dropped through the tracks and into a lot on Delancey Street.
The incident was the second consecutive Friday that subway surfing had been reported on that same line and at that same location on the Williamsburg Bridge. That pattern gave the crash a grim immediacy: the danger was not abstract, not rare, and not hidden from the people trying to stop it.
Demetrius Crichlow called the episode heartbreaking and said the idea that riding outside trains ends in tragedy is incomprehensible, adding that it pains him as a parent that it keeps happening. He said he was imploring families, friends, teachers and others who come into contact with teens taking part in these suicidal stunts to get them to stop.
The facts in this case leave little room for ambiguity. A teenager died. Another was injured. And on a stretch of track where the same behavior had already surfaced the week before, the risk turned fatal again in front of rush-hour traffic and commuters moving toward Manhattan.
What happens next is not a mystery: the warning is being aimed not only at the subway system, but at the people around teenagers before they climb onto a train. That is where the intervention has to happen, because once subway surfing begins, the outcome can change in seconds.
