NEW YORK — A woman suspected of shoving a man to his death in front of an oncoming New York subway train was arrested late Saturday and charged with “second-degree murder as a hate crime” in the second such fatality this month for one of the world's busiest transit systems. Erika Menendez of the Bronx borough was motivated by hatred of Muslims and Hindus, according to the Queens District Attorney's Office. “I pushed a Muslim off the train tracks because I hate Hindus and Muslims. Ever since 2001 when they put down the twin towers, I've been beating them up,” she told police. Menendez, who is awaiting arraignment in Queens Criminal Court, faces from 25 years to life in prison if convicted. The victim, 46-year-old Sunando Sen, was born in India and raised Hindu, a roommate told The New York Times. Menendez was taken into custody in Brooklyn by authorities acting on a tip from someone who recognized the suspect from video of the incident that was aired on television, a spokeswoman for the district attorney told Reuters. “The defendant is accused of committing what is every subway commuter's worst nightmare - being suddenly and senselessly pushed into the path of an oncoming train,” District Attorney Richard Brown said in a statement. “Beyond that, the hateful remarks allegedly made by the defendant and which precipitated the defendant's actions can never be tolerated in a civilized society,” he said. The prosecutor's statement quoted Menendez as telling investigators: “I pushed a Muslim off the train tracks because I hate Hindus and Muslims ever since 2001 when they put down the twin towers I've been beating them up.” Her alleged admission was an apparent reference to the Sept. 11, 2001, attack on Manhattan's World Trade Center by Muslim extremists who flew two hijacked jetliners into the twin towers. Brown's statement gave no indication of the victim's ethnicity or religion or Menendez might have taken Sen to be a Muslim. — Reuters
