Two days before Christmas, a “thug” launched an “unprovoked attack” on a female MTA employee on a Bronx subway platform, “choking her” and causing injuries, according to the Daily News. The “hulking brute” then fled the scene, “grinning as he made his may through the turnstile.”
The newspaper’s description conjures images of a fanatical psychopath, aggressively assaulting an innocent victim and showing a twisted pleasure in his deranged actions while escaping. Several days later the perpetrator was located, but he was not arrested. On Friday, more than a month later, police announced he will face only misdemeanor charges.
The perpetrator was allegedly discovered when he saw video of himself on the news and turned himself in, police said. Incidentally the man, 37-year-old Mirjan Lolja, is himself an NYPD policeman.