By New York Post (U.S.) | Created at 2025-01-01 22:55:51 | Updated at 2025-01-04 14:47:03
2 days ago
A Brooklyn woman who was mercilessly stalked by deranged subway shoving suspect Kamel Hawkins said he terrified her for weeks — and is grateful she wasn’t the one who he eventually put in the hospital.
“It could have been me,” said the woman, who asked not to be identified, told The Post Wednesday. “People always say that you gotta read the red flags, and I’m glad I did.
“It’s sad” she added. “I don’t wish nothing bad for him. He could have finished school and become an IT tech. He could have left the projects. He could have changed his own story.”
Instead, Hawkins, 23, was arraigned on attempted murder and assault charges in Manhattan Criminal Court in the horrifying caught-on-vide transit attack on 45-year-old straphanger Joseph Lynskey.
Hawkins was already facing assault and harassment charges in Brooklyn when he allegedly shoved Lynskey — who miraculously survived despite a skull fracture, broken ribs and a ruptured spleen.
The victim was listed in stable condition at Bellevue Hospital on Wednesday.
According to Hawkins’ alleged stalking victim, the two met while studying at Brooklyn Job Corps.
She said the two started “hanging out” but the relationship never turned romantic — and quickly fizzled out after Hawkins slugged her dog for no reason in the fall.
“I went back in the room, like, ‘Did you just hit my dog?’ And he’s like, ‘Yeah, that n—a is wilin.’ Why would you hit my dog? My dog is like my kid,” she said. “After that I let him know I’m not cool with him.”
But the woman said Hawkins didn’t get the message, even after she blocked him on her phone.
On Oct. 9 he showed up at her apartment.
“Out of nowhere he’s kicking my door. He’s got his ski mask on,” she said.
She said it continued to happen over the coming days, prompting her to show up at Hawkins’ father’s apartment at Whitman Houses in Brooklyn — to no avail.
“‘Tell your son to stop kicking down my door, it’s scary,'” the woman said she told Shamel Hawkins. “‘He’s sending me sexual text messages.’ It seemed his dad more wanted us to move away from the door.
“[Kamel] comes to the door, same ski mask he’s wearing in the video,” she said. “He threw bleach on me and my best friend. It got in my eye. He’s screaming, ‘You bitches is crazy. I don’t know you bitches.'”
She said the harassment reached a fever pitch on Oct. 19.
“I came outside. I was going to hang out with my boyfriend, and he had the same ski mask, same hoodie from the [subway shove] video,” she recalled. “I pulled out my pepper spray. I told him I’m going to pepper spray you. He picked up a canned drink and threw it at me, ‘You don’t got your boyfriend with you, you don’t got you uncle with you,’
“I sprayed him, but it didn’t really do anything,” she said.
That’s when the woman called the cops and Hawkins was arrested — only to be released without bail on Oct. 20 to enter a court intervention program, court records show.
Meanwhile, the frightened woman was forced to request an emergency New York City Housing Authority relocation on Nov. 11 and now lives at a different housing complex.
“He creeps around,” she said of Hawkins. “You don’t even know where he’s at. One time me and my boyfriend was sitting outside, 2, 3 in the morning, and then he was just walking, like that’s weird.”
