A Manhattan woman stabbed a transgender man who had offered her a seat on a Harlem subway Christmas night after declaring, “I don’t want to sit next to black people,” police sources said.
Stephanie Pazmino, 30, was riding a southbound No. 4 train with her cousin by 125th St. and Lexington Ave. at about 11:05 p.m. when Ijan DaVonte Jarrett, 44, who is black, offered to give up his seat. She refused, then told her cousin in Spanish that she didn’t want to sit next to a black person, sources said.
“I got up anyway and said to her that she didn’t have to sit next to me,” said Jarrett, a hairstylist on his way home from a Christmas Day job in Bayonne. “I took a seat across from her and just forgot all about it.”
When Pazmino got up to leave the train, she started punching him, he said. He didn’t realize he was being stabbed, he said, until another man rushed in to help.
Pazmino stuck him in the arm with a 2-inch knife and slashed his face, police sources said.
“I ran to the ticket booth to ask the attendant to call the police, she stated that she did, and that I should sit down. And I passed out after that,” Jarrett said.
Emergency personnel took him to Harlem Hospital.
Jarrett said he didn’t know if he was also targeted because he’s transgender.
Cops busted Pazmino at the corner of 125th St. and Lexington Ave. and charged her with assault as a hate crime, reckless endangerment and weapons possession.
