Man Charged With Murder in Stabbing at Manhattan Subway Station

A Manhattan man was arrested early Saturday and charged with murder in a fatal stabbing the night before at an Upper Manhattan subway station, the police said.

The man, Diego Figueroa-Hepner, 24, was arrested at NewYork-Presbyterian Hospital shortly after 2 a.m., the police said. In addition to murder, he was charged with criminal possession of a weapon. He was in custody on Saturday afternoon, awaiting a court appearance, the police said.

The arrest came about eight hours after officers responding to a 911 call about a person stabbed at the West 175th Street A train station in Washington Heights found a man near the turnstiles on the mezzanine level, the police said. He had been stabbed several times in the torso, the police said.

The stabbing victim, who was identified by officials on Saturday as Johnny Medina, a 40-year-old Manhattan resident, was taken to Harlem Hospital, where he was pronounced dead, the police said.

Mr. Figueroa-Hepner and Mr. Medina knew each other, and the stabbing occurred after a dispute between them escalated, the police said.

“This was a senseless attack that spilled from the street to the subway,” said Tim Minton, a spokesman for the Metropolitan Transportation Authority, which operates the mass transit system. “And we appreciate the N.Y.P.D.’s rapid investigation, using video from transit cameras, to identify and arrest the suspect within hours.”

M.T.A. surveys show that many riders feel unsafe, but data has not always confirmed the public’s perception. Crime rates rose during the coronavirus pandemic starting in 2020, but last year overall crime in the transit system fell nearly 3 percent compared with 2022 even as the number of daily riders rose 14 percent.

There had been five murders in the transit system this year through June 16, according to police data, compared with four during the same time period last year. Overall major crime in the transit system this year is down 5.5 percent compared with the same time period last year.