The gun-toting maniac who allegedly launched Thursday’s violent subway fight apparently targeted his victim because he wrongly thought the straphanger was a recent migrant, it surfaced Friday — along with new video showing the assailant illegally entering the transit system.
Ranting rider Dajuan Robinson, 36, was shot through the eye with his own gun after suddenly going berserk on 32-year-old dad of two Younece Obuad on an evening A train as it pulled into the Hoyt-Schermerhorn Street station, cops and law-enforcement sources said.
Robinson had first entered the system that evening at Nostrand Avenue, where footage caught him sauntering illegally through an emergency gate.
“If you want to keep the system safe, the first thing you have to do is keep bad people out of the system who don’t pay — this is a perfect example to talk about it,’’ NYPD Deputy Inspector Tarik Sheppard told reporters Friday at a press conference — where he and other top police brass tried to hammer home the need to continue to crack down on quality-of-life issues such as fare-beating.
By the time Robinson had made his way onto the crowded train, he began harassing Obuad, a stranger, according to cops and video.
“I’ll beat you up! You think you’re gonna beat up cops?’’ Robinson snarled at the man.
A woman off-camera said, “He thinks you’re a migrant, he thinks you’re an immigrant,” apparently referencing the migrant mob caught on camera pounding a pair of officers around Times Square in January.
Robinson then continued raging at Obuad, “F–k your kind! F–k your race! F–k you!”
He pulls out a blade and starts pummeling Obuad, prompting the woman with the younger man to produce a knife and stab Robinson in the back, according to police sources and video.
Robinson pulls out a gun, and he and Obuad wrestle over it, with the weapon going off, leaving the 36-year-old deranged man shot four times, stabbed twice and hospitalized in critical condition.
Obuad was taken into custody, questioned and then released without being charged Friday, with prosecutors saying he acted in apparent self-defense.
Law-enforcement sources said Robinson’s comments during the incident suggest he targeted Obuad thinking he was a recent migrant to the Big Apple, which has been roiled by issues as it grapples with an influx of tens of thousands of recent asylum-seekers.
According to Obuad’s kin and pals, as well as sources and records, Obuad has been in the US for years.
Tareq Al Haidari, a worker at the Tony Convenience Smoke Shop in Sunset Park, Brooklyn, where Obuad once worked, told The Post on Friday that the shooter arrived in the US at age 3 from Yemen.
A step-by-step breakdown of what happened in the Brooklyn subway shooting
Obuad, who has two young children, also has a father and brother in the city, Al Haidari said.
He worked at the smoke shop for a while but then stopped showing up in June 2022, Al Haidari said.
The mayor and top cops said Friday that Robinson — who was hospitalized in critical condition — showed disturbing signs of mental illness during the incident.
“I saw that video, I think I had the same thoughts as you,’’ NYPD Chief of Department Jeffrey Maddrey told reporters. “It seemed like the male was making inferences like he was a police officer as he was speaking to the person he was having a dispute with.
“Again, it was just something that was very alarming,’’ Maddrey said. “We know we have people in the subway who suffer from mental illness.’’
Robinson’s estranged wife later told The Post that her husband had not exhibited any signs of mental issues when they were together, although he had been getting increasingly aggressive, which is why she split from him about a year ago.
Robinson has had run-ins with cops several times, including in November 2022 for allegedly pushing his wife and throwing something at their TV when she failed to greet him as he entered their Staten Island home, sources said.
At the time, cops were told Robinson had been seen with a gun a few months earlier, but it was unclear what the outcome of the report was.
A month earlier, he had been accused of cutting the cords to their washing machine, dishwasher and electric grill during a fit, sources said.
Robinson was arrested another time, in 2012, for a robbery in which he allegedly used a razor to cut his victim, sources said.
NYPD Deputy Commissioner of Operations Kaz Daughtry said at the press conference, “Sometimes people ask why we do such big operations for somebody not paying a $2.90 fare.
“We are seeing a small group of people, a small group of individuals, who we catch during these fare-evasion operations that are recidivists that have warrants, that have guns, that have knives, yet they don’t pay their fare,’’ he said.
“So it’s important for us to do these quality-of-life operations. Small things like walking through an exit gate, through an emergency gate, hopping over the turnstile, leads to big things.’’
MTA Chairman and CEO Janno Lieber added in a statement, “It’s no surprise that a man carrying a loaded gun and a knife into the subway came through an exit gate, which — as I’ve been saying for years — is the super highway of fare evasion used by many violent criminals entering the system.
“For the past year in many stations, we have posted unarmed security guards to stop people opening the gate. And a few weeks ago, we got approval from the building code authorities at the Department of the State to try out programming the gates in some stations so they don’t open immediately after they’re pushed, and we’re going to continue aggressively pressing for approval to expand that to more stations, while also trying out other innovative approaches.”
Additional reporting by Georgett Roberts and Nolan Hicks
