A 47-year-old woman was stabbed in the back by a man in a wheelchair in what police say was an unprovoked attack on a Queens train platform Thursday night.
The woman was struck in the lower back with an unknown object and suffered a puncture wound. She was taken by Emergency Medical Services to Jamaica Hospital with non-life threatening injuries.
The attack occurred at about 5:30 p.m. as the woman was standing on the north-bound E train platform at Continental Avenue and 71st Avenue in Forest Hills Queens when the attacker in a wheelchair, was acting erratically according to witnesses before he rode up to the woman and without saying anything, stabbed her in the lower back with an unknown object, police officials said. Transit police found the woman on the ground and called for an ambulance and began searching for the suspect.
The suspect was nabbed about half an hour later nearby by police from the 112th Precinct.
He is now being identified as 57-year-old Daniel Arquette of 74th Place in Queens. Police say he didn’t say why he stabbed the woman, and police believe him to be emotionally disturbed and still had no motive for the stabbing.
However, attorney for Daniel Arquette, Todd Spodek, called the arrest a case of “mistaken identity.”
