A Fox News weatherman has been badly beaten on the New York City subway after telling a group of teenagers to stop hassling an elder man.
Adam Klotz, 37, was attacked by ‘five or six’ teenagers, who punched him in the face and kicked him in the chest, leaving him with a black eye and bruised ribs.
Three of the teenagers, two aged 15 and one 17, were caught by police who took their details and contacted their parents to pick them up in the early hours of Sunday, a police source told the New York Post.
In 2022 subway crime was up 30 percent on 2021, according to data from the city.
Fox News weatherman Adam Klotz, 37, was beaten by teenagers on the Subway after he says he told them to stop bothering an old man
Klotz, who is originally from Indiana, took to Instagram to explain the wounds to his face and provide context to the incident, which happened at around 1.15am near 18th Street station by the 1 train.
He said that he was on the way home after watching the New York Giants NFL playoff game when he saw the teens bothering an old man.
‘Coming home last night from watching the [New York] Giants game at a bar, on the subway, this older gentleman was being hassled by this group of seven or eight teens,’ he said.
Klotz added: ‘I was like, ‘Yo, guys, cut that out.’ And they decided, ‘Alright, he’s not gonna get it, then you’re going to get it,’ and boy did they give it to me. They had me on the ground, my ribs are all kinds of bruised up too. They got their hits in.’
Klotz had injuries to boy eyes and grazes on his face, but said the wounds to his body were worse
The beating happened at around 1.15am at 18th Street station by the 1 train
The old man that Klotz said he was defending was fine and able to get away unscathed, he said.
‘Juvenile reports were prepared, and their parents were called to pick them up,’ a rep for the NYPD told the Post on Sunday.
Klotz’s face was clearly beaten and tender, with both eyelids red and purple, but the weatherman clarified that his injuries would heal. ‘I got X-rays. I’m OK. This is all going to heal. So, it’s all good,’ he said.
‘You should see the other guy,’ Klotz joked. ‘My side is so much worse than my face, and the thing is the other guy is not really a guy. It’s children. Five or six children.’
It seems that while three teens were apprehended by the NYPD, the remainder were able to escape. While Klotz said on the video that some of the teenagers were ‘grabbed’, its not clear whether he knew they were released, but he joked: ‘New York City! The Big Apple!’
The NYPD did not respond to a request for a comment on Sunday afternoon.
NYPD data showed transit crime had risen 42% through October 2022. For the full year Subway crime was up 30 percent
Crime on the subway was up last year but Mayor Eric Adams has suggested that those statistics are merely a reflection of the fact that more people are using it in post-pandemic New York.
Subway crime rose by 30 percent in 2022, more than the 22 percent increase in general major crime across the city.
In response to the subway’s high crime rate the city has sought to deploy more NYPD officers to man stations. This year the department is spending an additional $20million each month on police overtime, Bloomberg reported.
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However, during conference earlier in the month involving Adams and Chief of Transit Michael Kemper, the two chose instead to compare the 2022 number with 2019.
‘When comparing 2022 crime versus 2019, subway crime was down 7.7 percent and it was the lowest since 2014. Matter of fact, when comparing 2022 overall crime in transit to pre-pandemic years, it was the lowest year in over 25 years,’ said Kemper.
