NEW YORK — A homeless man was cuffed for allegedly stabbing a straphanger to death aboard a Manhattan subway car, cops announced Monday.
Police arrested Claude White, 33, on charges including murder and illegal possession of a weapon, according to law enforcement.
White allegedly stabbed 32-year-old Tavon Silver, who was aboard a Brooklyn-bound No. 4 train operating on the local line at 4 a.m. Saturday. A commuter noticed the victim bleeding heavily and falling in and out of consciousness between 23rd St. and Union Square stops, police sources said.
When the train arrived at Union Square, the witness alerted the train conductor, who realized that the victim had been stabbed and called 911.
Paramedics rushed him to Bellevue Hospital in Kips Bay, where he died, cops said.
Friends of Silver were devastated to learn of his murder, remembering him as a spirited companion, who didn’t deserve the grisly hand he was dealt.
“He was so vibrant and full of life,” Amy Walker, 33, a close family friend of Silver told The Daily News. “How could somebody do something like that to him? Did somebody comfort him? Did he have to die by himself? He comforted everybody, he didn’t deserve that!”
A Connecticut native, Silver moved from New Haven to New York City shortly after coming out of the closet as a gay man, and he reveled in the acceptance he found in the Big Apple, according to Walker.
“That’s where he found his happiness,” he said. “He changed his whole style. He didn’t want to be the same as everybody else. ‘If this is my style, I’m gonna rock my style.’”
But Silver’s sexuality made him a target, and he survived a previous stabbing that occurred on a Bronx subway car in June last year — almost three weeks to the year from the attack that claimed his life.
“Turn the music down, f----t!” Runadieo Jordan, 52, allegedly shouted, before stabbing Silver in the right forearm on June 1.
After recovering from the stabbing last year, Silver continued to embrace life in the big city, but he also developed a newfound respect for the fragility of life, Walker said.
“He sent me a message, (it said) ‘there’s so many things going on in the world, it could be anyone of us. I just want you to know that I care about you,’” Walker recounted. “It makes you wish that you had an opportunity to call that person more often every day.”
As the city’s June 25 Pride Parade rapidly approaches, Walker said her friend’s absence will feel all the more painful as New Yorkers turn out in their thousands to celebrate queer culture and alternative lifestyles.
“Pride is coming up this week,” said Walker. “I was looking forward to seeing him out there.”
White was also charged in connection to a robbery that occurred earlier this month, and has been arrested seven times previously on charges including robbery, assault, and grand larceny dating back to 2010, cops said.
