Man Threatens To Kill Himself On J Train If Riders Don't Pay Him

BUSHWICK, BROOKLYN — A panhandler terrified J train passengers by threatening to kill himself if they didn’t give him money to feed his children, witnesses said.

“I’m gonna do it, I’m gonna kill myself if I can’t get even a dollar,” a 24-year-old woman named Rose heard the man say Friday morning. “I’m hungry, I got kids to feed, life isn’t worth living.”

An hour earlier, at about 7:45 a.m., Robbie Sacunas, 25, watched the man dangle his legs over the Kosciuszko Street station platform and threaten to commit suicide, he said.

"I was standing there,” said Sacunas. “I thought, ‘If he jumps, do I look at it or do I just look away?”

Sacunas, a Google software engineer, continued walking down the platform, but eventually the man caught up with him, he said.

“He came up to me and said, ‘I’m gonna f---ing kill myself if people don’t give me food or money,’ said Sacunas.

A group of women used a Help Point to call police, but the man jumped onto a crowded Manhattan-bound J train before authorities could arrive, said Sacunas.

That's when Rose, who declined to give her last name, spotted the man walking back and forth between train cars — while the train was moving — and forcing people in the crowded train to jump out of his way.

“It was very erratic behavior for that early in the morning,” said Rose, who was commuting to her marketing job in Manhattan. He eventually stopped in a doorway and began to scream.

“I’m gonna end my life! I’m so hungry! I have to feed my kids," he said, according to Rose.

Rose, terrified, watched as a fellow straphanger, a young man who had been sitting and reading a book, stood up, walked over to the door and put a $10 bill in the agitated man’s hand.

“He said, ‘Hey man, I have money, don’t do that — your life is more valuable than that.’”

The man told the straphanger his name was Tim and that he was angry at being unable to feed his kids, said Rose.

Rose wracked her brains for a way to get help, but the train was stopped between stations and she was afraid to aggravate the man further, she said.

“I didn’t want to call 911 because I didn’t want him to overhear me and escalate the situation,” said Rose. “They say to find an MTA worker, but I wouldn’t even know how to do that. There wasn't a button or anything.”

The young man continued to suggest places where the man could seek help and pulled out his wallet a second time when Tim said, “Ten dollars isn’t very much.”

Finally the train pulled into the Marcy Avenue station and the man got off the train, said Rose

She was stunned to see him pull a handful of cash out of his pocket, and later, when she posted her story on Reddit, to hear the man had targeted Sacunas earlier the same day.

“I got angry, that’s a really horrible thing to do,” said Rose. “How did they learn that that’s a useful tactic?"

“It’s all a scam,” wrote Sacunas in his reply. “I’ve lived here long enough to know bulls---.”

Police did not have any record of the incident, a spokeswoman told Patch.

Photos courtesy of Robbie Sacunas