Woman’s Toxic Empathy Blamed for NYC Retiree’s Murder in Vicious Subway Attack
“Maybe a part of me was just like, I don’t want to put another black man in jail, but, you know, at some point, if you are a criminal, you’re a criminal, and he was scary, he was a scary guy.”
What makes stories about violent attacks that leave victims seriously injured or dead especially infuriating is finding out after the fact that if someone had spoken out sooner about the suspects, then maybe it wouldn’t have happened.
Last Thursday, a 76-year-old man was trying to take the subway in New York City when he was pushed down a flight of stairs, allegedly by a 32-year-old repeat offender who is well known to the NYPD. The retired teacher later died from injuries sustained in the attack:
Moments before the deadly attack, [suspect Rhamell] Burke trailed about 30 yards behind [victim Ross] Falzone as he walked north on Seventh Avenue, authorities said.
As the men approached the train station at that intersection, the suspect allegedly sped up and violently shoved the innocent senior down the steps into the station before fleeing the scene, according to police.
Falzone landed on his head about halfway down the stairs and suffered a traumatic brain injury, right rib fracture and spinal fracture, cops said.
According to authorities, Burke “mysteriously walked free from Bellevue Hospital about an hour after cops cuffed him and checked him in as an ’emotionally disturbed person’ around 3:30 p.m. Thursday.” A few hours after Burke’s release, Falzone was murdered.
A 76-year-old man was fatally assaulted in Chelsea.
The incident happened Thursday, with officers responding to a 911 call about an assault at W. 18th St. and 7th Ave.
At the scene, officers found Ross Falzone, unconscious, with injuries to his head.
Medics rushed hiim to… pic.twitter.com/nF59kP3QGc
— Crime In NYC (@Crime_In_NYC) May 8, 2026
Ross Falzone, 76 Years Old, was shoved to his death just trying to go home on the NYC subway. pic.twitter.com/rlPK0MuYVI
— 0HOUR1 (@0hour1) May 9, 2026
Horrific: 76-year-old retired NY teacher Ross Falzone was kiIIed after being shoved down subway stairs by a career criminal who was released from a psych ward just HOURS earlier — the suspect also had 4 arrests in the last 4 months alone
We shouldn’t have to live like this! pic.twitter.com/Zr23UxIeSd
— Libs of TikTok (@libsoftiktok) May 10, 2026
We have been reliably informed that soft-on-crime Mayor Zohran “Defund the Police” Mamdani, who proclaimed that he was “horrified by the killing of Ross Falzone and the circumstances that led to it,” is going to get to the bottom of why the psych ward released Burke:
Mamdani orders probe of Bellevue over its quick release of suspect in Chelsea killing https://t.co/Ow0hDuFV5M
— Gothamist (@Gothamist) May 8, 2026
The New York Post interviewed another alleged victim of Burke’s on Friday, and discovered that she opted not to cooperate with prosecutors in part because she didn’t “want to put another black man in jail”:
The horrified [23-year-old] victim told The Post she and a friend were on a subway in Manhattan on April 2 when Rhamell Burke approached them and began a conversation they quickly shut down before frantically trying to switch cars to get away from him.
She said the crazed suspect stalked them closely and allegedly yanked her by the back of her head in an attempt to slam her to the ground and booted her friend in the back.
[…]
She said the attack left her and her friend “in shock,” but they ultimately chose not to cooperate with prosecutors …
[…]
“I regret it 100% and I actually feel really bad that a man lost his life,” the woman said.
[…]
“Maybe a part of me was just like, I don’t want to put another black man in jail, but, you know, at some point, if you are a criminal, you’re a criminal, and he was scary, he was a scary guy.”
Burke was hit with an assault charge for the April attack and granted supervised release at arraignment.
Liberal woman who refused to cooperate with prosecutors after maniac attacked her on subway weeks before he pushed retired NYC teacher to death has regrets: "Maybe a part of me was just like, I don’t want to put another black man in jail." https://t.co/QihuYD552f
— Miranda Devine (@mirandadevine) May 9, 2026
This is classic toxic or suicidal empathy, as others observed:
She did not want to "put another black man in jail," and he went on to murder an elderly man.
White, liberal women have suicidal empathy. https://t.co/wYZK8iA1hF
— Carmine Sabia (@CarmineSabia) May 9, 2026
Substacker Teri Smith went off:
Next time someone asks you for an example of “Suicidal Empathy” or “Toxic Empathy,” remember this leftist woman who didn’t press charges against her attacker for fear of being “racist” and regretted it when he went on to murder someone.
Suicidal Empathy makes criminals out of victims and victims out of criminals. It’s upside down empathy, where those who are victimized are ignored in favor of pouring out “empathy” for offenders. It harms. It doesn’t help.
Next time someone asks you for an example of “Suicidal Empathy” or “Toxic Empathy,” remember this leftist woman who didn’t press charges against her attacker for fear of being “racist” and regretted it when he went on to murder someone.
Suicidal Empathy makes criminals out of… https://t.co/6TGN9BZzjh
— Keri Smith 🌱Deprogrammed (@RealKeriSmith) May 9, 2026
Suicidal Empathy ain’t just a river in Egypt, as @3YearLetterman might say. @GadSaad is right.
— Roxanne Hoge (@RoxanneHoge) May 9, 2026
Race communist brainwashing kills innocent people every day, just like this completely avoidable, savage murder ⬇️ https://t.co/uIqBkbMnSf
— Buck Sexton (@BuckSexton) May 9, 2026
Toxic
Empathy
Kills https://t.co/bsdXsLqc27
— Mike Lee (@BasedMikeLee) May 10, 2026
If only part of you was like, “I don’t want to put another innocent life in danger.” https://t.co/HQvmOR0Q1C
— Rafael A. Mangual (@Rafa_Mangual) May 9, 2026
If only.
– Stacey Matthews has also written under the pseudonym “Sister Toldjah” and can be reached via X. –
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Comments
What this entire article overlooks is that EVEN if this AWFL had cooperated he would have still been released in a matter of hours. She is a moron but it wouldn’t have made any difference.
Criminal acts are not constant…. they are much like “mostly peaceful protests”. Episodes of crime interspersed with non-criminal behavior. So this murderer had mostly law-abiding behavior which is what the Left focuses on. And the lethal soft-bigotry of low expectations. If these acts were perpetrated on officials …well…. that’s different. If these crimes were punished hard…. arrest….trial… public hanging, then the low expectation criminals would suddenly gain higher expectations.
It wouldn’t have made any difference indeed. This country is so far along the road to complete societal collapse, so much sooner than we could have imagined, that it chills me to the bone.
That’s not empathy. It’s pity fueled by racism that a black male can’t possibly be responsible for his actions because slavery or some other bs.
The soft bigotry of lower expectations.
Stupid on the part of that woman! How many hundreds of thousands of them are out there? Will they wake up when it hits someone in their family?
I’m a retired university professor; Business College . Our university was great on offering a Criminal Justice degree. I have said for a long time it should NOT be Criminal Justice degree but should be a Criminal VICTIM degree. We are putting the emphasis in the wrong place.
Ironically, most of these victims voted for the very party that let that happen…
When black men stop committing crimes at a rate significantly greater than that of the general public (or other groups) they will no longer be going to jail at rate significantly greater than those in the other groups.
The left is openly admitting that black men do commit more violent crime and that there is nothing they (the left) can do to change that. They see the only way to change the optics is to put a thumb on the scale. And shame on the non-violent black people who will not speak out against this.
And still people wonder what causes perceived racism. Maybe, just maybe it’s a rational response to events…
The institutional left argues that blacks are disproportionately in jail and this is because of systematic racism. This is CRT at work and it’s 1000% BS.
These feral creatures who roam our streets have blood on their hands and so do their empathizers and sympathizers and enablers.
Another brainwashed wench throwing herself on the altar of The Exalted Demographic.
She would have served society better if she had let him kill her.
As I write this, I hear it echoing in my head in a Tyr Anasazi voice…
…but it’s still true.
Because Progressivism indoctrinated her into racism.
You have to be situationally aware of your surroundings at all times today
If a black
Person is walking behind you, go
Across the street.
Never let a black
Person get behind you, in front of you, anywhere near you
There are so many predators within this demographic, that it is perfectly rational to remove yourself from any close contact with this group; it is just not possible to know is this particular predator is hungry or not.
Don’t be prey. Don’t wander into the pack of wolves.
Scott Adams was right.
No. What you need to do is stay away from the places where that culture reigns.
It’s NOT the color of their skin. It’s the culture in which they’re raised.
And it’s the “all cultures are equal” BS of the Progressives that encourages it to continue.
Also, that culture is not confined to a skin color. Progressivism has made it into a racial thing, but it isn’t really.
Yes indeed. There’s something like two dozen zip codes where the majority of crime occurs. Even outside those in ‘safer’ jurisdictions there are areas of town with higher crime rates. It ain’t about ‘race’ it is cultural rot that allows crime to flourish. This AWFL who enabled more crime is emblematic of the cultural problem.
Wrong. My crewmembers in the Air Force, people with whom I’ve worked in the Navy and Army, my fellow cadets at the Academy, my classmates in high school, the members of my congregation, and my extended family would be really pissed (and rightly so) if I did that to them.
It isn’t an issue of color. Stop saying it is.
Maybe not, but that’s all you can see on the street. You can’t see which are safe and which aren’t, and since the price of being wrong is extreme, it’s better to err on the side of caution.
And if immersed in a group setting of this same demographic, seek an exit IMMEDIATELY.
“There is nothing more painful to me at this stage in my life than to walk down the street and hear footsteps… then turn around and see somebody white and feel relieved.”
― Jesse Jackson
Yes, this is an attitude that is widely held by narcissistic, stupid and evil communist/Islamofascist Dhimmi-crats — it’s acceptable and laudable to let innocent citizens be assaulted, robbed, raped and murdered, by recidivist, criminal sociopaths “of color,” so long as said criminals aren’t aggressively arrested, prosecuted and incarcerated for their predations.
That’s “progressive”/”liberal”/Dhimmi-crat “compassion,” for you.
The woman who didn’t cooperate suffered from the usual liberal issue of being unable to correctly identify bad people. That’s one of the reasons they keep voting for them.
They refuse to believe there is such a thing as “human nature”.
Toxic empathy is a cultivated byproduct of pathological guilt.
I can 100% guarantee that in an identical situation in the future she and her friend would do EXACTLY the same thing again.
What is happening in the United States – and the Western world in general – is a spiritual crisis. Perfectly ordinary-looking humans believe themselves to be gods, and in doing so have become demons.
A travel advisory is needed for NYC: better to stay away and stay alive.
“I don’t want to put another black man in jail”
You call it racism.
I call it pattern recognition.
Urban black culture in America is insanely toxic and destructive to the very blacks that mired in it.
Never forget how this all started – LBJ’s Great Society. “I’ll have those (racial pejorative) voting Democrat for the next hundreds years” (or something close to that).
Since the Great Society, by every measure, the American dream has been slipping away from black America every bit as much as the hangman’s noose has been slipping over their heads.
It’s well past time the Democrat Party goes out of existence.
Actually, LBJ said he’d “have them [black citizens] voting Democratic for the next 200 years.” Only 138 years left to go.
She said the crazed suspect stalked them closely and allegedly yanked her by the back of her head in an attempt to slam her to the ground and booted her friend in the back.
And in a proper society, that would have gotten him shot or beaten so severely he wouldn’t have been out of the hospital in time to kill the teacher. Some man would have defended the woman violently and possibly ended his streak of malicious assaults, if not at least giving the man some consequences to ponder.
This is a result of our comfort and safety allowing the Progressive mindset to tell us stupid things like “Violence never solves anything” and the therapeutic mindset in our “justice” system.
If there are known bad behaving breeds of dogs, why can we also not assume there are bad behaving breeds of people?
Because people are not dogs.
True. Dogs return kindness with loyalty. People return kindness with entitlement.
Nah, the majority of dogs and people both return strong, competent, consistent and confident leadership with loyalty. Are there exceptions? Sure. In general though there’s no ‘bad dog breeds’ or ‘bad races’ …just like there’s no bad Battalions, only bad Colonels…or Parents/dog owners who instead provided weak, inconsistent, incompetent leadership.
If you meant Pitbulls they were manipulated to be that way through years of unnatural selective breeding and nurturing. The humans forced this whacked out breed of dogs to kill other dogs for human entertainment.
Just betting that if “permanently retired” former school teacher Ross Falcone was still here, he would simply say, ‘Thanks, Karen!”
Go back and rewatch a couple oldies and realize they were prophetic.
Robocop. The bad guys funded and directed and enabled the violent criminal gangs in Detroit to disrupt society to seize power. To justify using extreme power against the criminals. First. Then the citizens.
Rhymes and all that