When seconds count, the NYPD is only 20 minutes away

Subway pervert held by citizens, who eventually pummel him after cops decline to respond

The 35-year-old man who filmed a viral video that shows an Asian man being attacked in a NYC subway station told The Post he believed the incident was vigilante justice not ethnic hate.

The videographer, who asked to remain anonymous, said he was on his way home from work around 3:30 p.m. Friday when he saw the Asian man being held from behind on the A/C platform in the Fulton Street station.

“I said, `What are you doing? Why are you holding that guy?” the filmer recalled. And in response he claimed the Asian man had just tried to sexually assault a woman in a subway car so he pulled him off onto the platform.

The black man who was holding the alleged assaulter then said, “‘Call the cops,’” according to the videographer.

When he called 911, cops said they’d be right there, he recalled. But five minutes went by and the police didn’t come.

“The guy holding the Asian gentleman said, ‘Where are the cops? Where are the cops?” he said. “So I called the cops a second time.”

The man who was being held was trying to get away, he said.

“Although the video doesn’t show that, he was trying to get away the entire time,” the filmer said. “There were other people around. One girl says, ‘I’ll go upstairs and get them.’ She came back down and said ‘They’re coming.’”

But police officers didn’t arrive for about 20 minutes after his first call. Meanwhile, as new onlookers arrived they were told the man had tried to assault a girl on the train.

The man who was being held allegedly said, “‘Yeah, so what? Do you have it on camera?” the videographer recalled. 

Around this time, two other men suddenly attacked the alleged assaulter, he said.

One of the men slaps the Asian man in the face, causing his body to go limp, the video shows. Then, a second man delivers a series of punches to his head. Some in the group cheered and applauded the beating.

One of the men who struck the straphanger can be heard saying that he has a daughter before his hand makes contact with the man’s face.

“I got a daughter,” he said. “If the cops lock me up, I’m paying my own bail.”

The video shooter said he and the man holding the alleged attacker were trying to calm everyone down.

“You hear the guy holding him saying, ‘Chill! Chill!’ and you hear me saying, ‘Stop,'” he said.

The videographer said the violence might have been avoided if police had arrived sooner. He called the cops at 3:31 and the video was time stamped 3:49 and another five minutes went by before they arrived, he said.

Glenn Reynolds likes to say, “THE POLICE AREN’T THERE TO PROTECT US FROM THEM, THEY’RE THERE TO PROTECT THEM FROM US”

I think that’s increasingly becoming true