Stranger assaulted by maniac weeks before he pushed retired NYC teacher to death recounts frightening attack: ‘Why is he following us?’

A 23-year-old woman recounted the terrifying subway attack she suffered at the hands of the same recidivist madman accused of fatally shoving a retired Big Apple teacher down a flight of stairs hours after being released from a psych ward.

The horrified victim told The Post she and a friend were on a subway in Manhattan on April 2 when Rhamell Burke approached them and began a conversation they quickly shut down before frantically trying to switch cars to get away from him.

She said the crazed suspect stalked them closely and allegedly yanked her by the back of her head in an attempt to slam her to the ground and booted her friend in the back.

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A 23-year-old woman recounted the terrifying April 2 subway attack she suffered at the hands of Rhamell Burke.Robert Mecea for New York Post
“He comes up and he kicks my friend in the back, and basically pushes him through the transition of the cars,” the woman said in a phone interview Friday night.

“My friend freaks out, runs away, and then he grabs me by the head and pushes my head down, trying to like maybe throw me on the ground or something. But I didn’t, I resisted as much as I could. I didn’t fall, and then I immediately opened up the car and then ran towards my friend.”

The train then “luckily” stopped at the West 4th Street-Washington Square Station in Greenwich Village, the victim said, prompting the alarmed pair to bolt off in a panic.

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Burke, 32, was charged with murder Friday for fatally shoving a 76-year-old man down a flight of stairs in Chelsea.Robert Mecea for New York Post
As they made their frantic escape, she said the 32-year-old serial offender was creepily following them.

“We get off at West 4th Street and then we turn around and we see he’s following us. That’s when I was like: ‘Oh, like, this is scary. Like, why is he following us?’” the woman recalled, calling the perp a “buff guy.”

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The front page of The Post on Saturday, May 9, 2026.
“We started running a little bit, but then thank God the cops were right there because, I mean, we kept thinking about, imagine that there were no cops, we would have had to literally run for our lives. They immediately arrested him. It was shut down really fast by the cops and we respected that.”

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The horrified victim told The Post Burke allegedly grabbed her head and kicked her friend on a subway last month.Obtained by NY Post
She said the attack left her and her friend “in shock,” but they ultimately chose not to cooperate with prosecutors — a decision she now regrets after Burke was charged with murder on Friday for allegedly hurling 76-year-old stranger Ross Falzone to his death at a Chelsea subway station Thursday night.

Police had taken the violent brute to Bellevue Hospital for “acting erratically” Thursday afternoon before he was released about an hour later and allegedly launched the deadly unprovoked attack later that night.

“I regret it 100% and I actually feel really bad that a man lost his life,” the woman said.

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Retried New York City teacher Ross Falzone died Thursday after being thrown down the stairs.Obtained by NY Post“Maybe a part of me was just like, I don’t want to put another black man in jail, but, you know, at some point, if you are a criminal, you’re a criminal, and he was scary, he was a scary guy.”

Burke was hit with an assault charge for the April attack and granted supervised release at arraignment.