A Retired Teacher Was Killed After New York Let His Alleged Attacker Walk Free Again and Again

Image credit: @PIX11News/YouTube

Ross Falzone was the kind of New Yorker who came home late. Not because he had to. Because the city kept giving him reasons to stay out.

His neighbors on West 85th Street knew the routine. Briel Waxman, 35, would get back to her apartment at midnight and find Falzone arriving at the same time. He loved classical music. Carnegie Hall. Lincoln Center. He had a doctorate from Columbia University and spent decades teaching special education, one of the hardest jobs there is.

He was 76 years old. He weighed less than 100 pounds. He had recently come through surgery, and his next-door neighbor Marc Stager, who had known him since 1981, noticed something in recent weeks. Falzone seemed happier. More mobile. More like himself.

On Thursday evening, May 7, he was walking north on Seventh Avenue, heading toward the No. 1 train at the 18th Street station in Chelsea. He was going home. He never made it. A 32-year-old former Broadway dancer who had been arrested five times since February, and released from Bellevue’s psychiatric ward just hours earlier, allegedly shoved him down the subway stairs. Falzone died before morning.

Thirty Yards

At approximately 9:30 p.m., surveillance cameras captured Burke walking behind Falzone on Seventh Avenue. From about 30 yards back, he picked up his pace. He came up behind the retired teacher and, according to prosecutors, used both hands to shove him down the full flight of subway stairs.

Falzone struck his head halfway down. He suffered a traumatic brain injury, a fractured spine, and a fractured rib. Paramedics rushed him to Bellevue Hospital. The same Bellevue Hospital that had released Burke hours earlier. He was pronounced dead at 2:55 a.m. Friday.

Burke fled on foot. Police tracked him to Penn Station the following afternoon. Sources say he admitted to the killing. He was still wearing the wristband.

At his arraignment Saturday, Burke smiled broadly as Judge Linda Capitti entered the courtroom. She noted the four open cases already on his record before ordering him held without bail. When she finished, Burke responded pleasantly and asked if there was anything else.

Five Arrests, Five Open Doors

Rhamell Burke once performed on Broadway in the ensemble cast of King Kong, which ran on Broadway from 2018 to 2019. He appeared on red carpets and posed with actress Patricia Clarkson in a photograph from 2021. A friend told reporters the spiral started during COVID. By 2026, he was homeless and moving through New York’s criminal justice system like a revolving door.

Image credit: @PIX11News/YouTube

On February 2, Burke allegedly assaulted a Port Authority police officer inside the World Trade Center after being caught stealing a bag of chips. Three officers came away with injuries. Released on non-monetary conditions.

On February 14, he allegedly kicked open a supply closet at the 23rd Street subway station, took a shovel, smashed subway car windows, and rolled a garbage can onto the live tracks. He was released.

On February 25, police found him stretched across multiple seats on a C train. When officers tried to handcuff him, he allegedly kicked one of them. They recovered a kitchen knife, a crack pipe, and a syringe. Released on his own recognizance.

On April 2, he allegedly approached a 23-year-old woman and her friend on the subway, stalked them between cars, yanked the woman by the back of her head, and kicked her friend. Officers arrested him on the spot. Prosecutors requested $3,000 bail. A judge granted supervised release instead.

The woman chose not to cooperate with prosecutors. She told the New York Post she did not want to put another Black man in jail. She now says she regrets it entirely.

On the afternoon of May 7, police found Burke outside the 17th Precinct stationhouse on East 51st Street, acting erratically and holding a stick from a garbage can. Officers took him to Bellevue Hospital at 3:39 p.m. for a psychiatric evaluation.

He was released at 4:39 p.m. One hour.

A senior NYPD official told reporters the rapid turnaround was not unusual.

Burke was still wearing his Bellevue wristband five hours later.

A Pattern With a Body Count

Image credit: @CrimesDigestDaily/YouTube

Falzone’s death was not an isolated failure. In March, 83-year-old Air Force veteran Richard Williams was shoved onto the tracks at a Manhattan subway station by a man with 15 prior charges. He died nine days later. In Charlotte last August, 23-year-old Ukrainian refugee Iryna Zarutska was stabbed in the neck on a light rail train by a repeat offender with 14 prior arrests. He has since been found incompetent to stand trial.

The pattern is the same in every city. Someone in crisis cycles through courts and hospitals. The system processes them and lets go. And someone who was just trying to get home pays the price.

Burke’s own attorney asked the judge for psychiatric treatment while he is incarcerated. Before the spiral, before the arrests, before the stick from the garbage can and the Bellevue wristband, he was a dancer on a Broadway stage.

Ross Falzone’s sister Donna had just celebrated her birthday with him in Manhattan. His nephew had visited weeks earlier on a day off from work. A neighbor who asked not to be identified said she wanted people to understand one thing about Falzone. That he was the nicest, most genuine, kind person.

His family in Pennsylvania is planning his funeral.