Subway survivor Joseph Lynskey speaks with ABC News. ABC News
(NEW YORK) — A man who was pushed onto New York City subway tracks in the path of an oncoming train is recounting the harrowing, near-death experience that left him with a fractured skull, four broken ribs and a ruptured spleen.
“I just thought, ‘I’ve been pushed and I’m going to die,'” Joe Lynskey, 45, told ABC News’ “Good Morning America” in a broadcast exclusive interview.
Lynskey had just finished a New Year’s Eve brunch with his friends when a stranger pushed him onto the tracks at the 18th Street station in Manhattan’s Chelsea neighborhood.
“It happened in a flash,” he said.
“The next thing I knew, I was flying through the air, and I saw the two lights of the train in my face and I could make out the shape of the conductor,” Lynskey said. “And then I crashed into the tracks and I smacked my head open on the ground.”
Lynskey survived the initial push, but he knew he was still in life-threatening danger due to the subway system’s electrified rail, known as the third rail.
“If you touch it at all, you will die immediately,” he said. “You cannot move. Don’t kick your feet, don’t struggle.”
Lynskey said he started screaming for help, and about 90 seconds in a woman responded to him and tried to keep him calm.
After about four minutes, Lynskey said he heard the sirens from rescuers rushing to the scene.
“They dragged me a few feet to the opening between the two subway cars and they told me to raise my hands above my head,” he said. “Two firefighters on the platform pulled me up onto the platform — and I heard my ribs crack. It was unbelievably painful.”
Lynskey spent seven days in the hospital, including five days in intensive care, as he recovered from his fractured skull, broken ribs and ruptured spleen.
The 23-year-old suspected of pushing Lynskey, Kamel Hawkins, fled the scene and was apprehended later that day. He was indicted on charges including attempted murder and has pleaded not guilty.
Asked what he would say to Hawkins, Lynskey replied, “I’m choosing not to focus on the anger or resentment or negativity.”
“I’m focusing on healing, recovering, getting myself back to my life,” he said.
Lynskey said that his experience is “a powerful reminder that this can all be taken away from you at any moment, and you have to keep going. Life is too short.”
Hawkins is next due in court on April 16.
Manhattan District Attorney Alvin Bragg called the attack “a brutal and unprovoked act of violence.”
“Every day, we will continue working closely with our law enforcement partners to hold accountable those who threaten the safety of New Yorkers utilizing our transit system,” Bragg said in a statement.
Secretaria de Prensa de la Presidencia via AFP via Getty Images
(WASHINGTON) — The U.S. Court of Appeals for the D.C. Circuit on Wednesday rejected the Trump administration’s effort to lift U.S. District Judge James Boasberg’s block on deportations under the Alien Enemies Act.
The appeals court heard arguments Monday over the Trump administration’s use of the Alien Enemies Act last week to deport more than 200 alleged members of a Venezuelan gang to El Salvador with no due process.
The Trump administration’s attempt to remove alleged migrant gang members in that manner deprives the men of “even a gossamer thread of due process,” Judge Patricia Millett wrote in her concurring opinion.
Disregarding their rights simply because they are unpopular or labeled terrorists, Millet wrote, would mean abandoning the “true mark of this great Nation.”
“The true mark of this great Nation under law is that we adhere to legal requirements even when it is hard, even when important national interests are at stake, and even when the claimant may be unpopular,” she wrote. “For if the government can choose to abandon fair and equal process for some people, it can do the same for everyone.”
Trump last week invoked the Alien Enemies Act — a wartime authority used to deport noncitizens with little-to-no due process — by arguing that the Venezuelan gang Tren de Aragua is a “hybrid criminal state” that is invading the United States. Boasberg temporarily blocked the president’s use of the law to deport more than 200 alleged gang members to El Salvador, calling the removals “awfully frightening” and “incredibly troublesome.”
Boasberg ordered that the government turn around the two flights carrying the alleged gang members, but authorities failed to turn the flights around, saying they were already in international waters.
Judge Millet and Judge Karen Henderson — who was first nominated to the federal bench by Ronald Reagan — determined that Boasberg acted correctly and within his authority when he temporarily blocked any deportations under the AEA.
“The district court entered the TROs [temporary restraining orders] for a quintessentially valid purpose: to protect its remedial authority long enough to consider the parties’ arguments,” Judge Henderson wrote in a concurring opinion.
Judge Justin Walker — a Trump appointee — dissented from the majority because he said the noncitizens should have filed their case in Texas, where they were deported from, rather than Washington, D.C., adding that the lower court’s decisions “threaten irreparable harm to delicate negotiations with foreign powers on matters concerning national security.”
He added that the public interest favors “swiftly removing dangerous aliens” compared to letting the case move through a court that lacks venue over the matter.
“The district court here in Washington, D.C. — 1,475 miles from the El Valle Detention Facility in Raymondville, Texas — is not the right court to hear the Plaintiffs’ claims. The Government likely faces irreparable harm to ongoing, highly sensitive international diplomacy and national-security operations,” he wrote.
Judge Millet pushed back on Walker’s claim that the men should have used habeas corpus to challenge their deportations in a Texas court, writing that such an approach is a “phantasm” of due process because the Trump administration would have removed the men before they could even file a claim.
“The government’s removal scheme denies Plaintiffs even a gossamer thread of due process, even though the government acknowledges their right to judicial review of their removability,” she wrote.
(NEW YORK) — President Donald Trump’s bid to cut off birthright citizenship is a “flagrantly unlawful attempt to strip hundreds of thousands American-born children of their citizenship based on their parentage,” attorneys for 15 states and the city of San Francisco said Tuesday in a lawsuit challenging the president’s executive order signed just hours after he was sworn in Monday.
The lawsuit accused Trump of seeking eliminate a “well-established and longstanding Constitutional principle” by executive fiat.
“The President has no authority to rewrite or nullify a constitutional amendment or duly enacted statute. Nor is he empowered by any other source of law to limit who receives United States citizenship at birth,” the lawsuit said.
Trump’s order directed federal agencies — starting next month — to stop issuing citizenship documents to U.S.-born children of undocumented mothers or mothers in the country on temporary visas, if the father is not a U.S. citizen or permanent resident.
According to the lawsuit, about 150,000 children born each year to two parents who were noncitizens and lacked legal status could lose access to basic health care, foster care, and early interventions for infants, toddlers, and students with disabilities.
“They will all be deportable, and many will be stateless,” the lawsuit said.
The states warned the executive order would also cause them to lose federal funding for programs that render services to children regardless of their immigration status.
While Trump’s order purports to unilaterally end birthright citizenship, only the U.S. Supreme Court can determine how the 14th Amendment applies.
“President Trump’s attempt to unilaterally end birthright citizenship is a flagrant violation of our Constitution,” said New Jersey Attorney General Matthew Platkin. “For more than 150 years, our country has followed the same basic rule: babies who are born in this country are American citizens.
The states are seeking to invalidate the executive order and stop any actions taken to implement it. Their lawsuit requests a preliminary injunction to immediately prevent the order from taking effect.
“The great promise of our nation is that everyone born here is a citizen of the United States, able to achieve the American dream,” said New York Attorney General Letitia James. “This fundamental right to birthright citizenship, rooted in the 14th Amendment and born from the ashes of slavery, is a cornerstone of our nation’s commitment to justice.”
On Tuesday, nonprofit groups in Massachusetts and New Hampshire also filed federal lawsuits challenging Trump’s birthright citizenship executive order.
