random act of violence -- scary stuff in the NYC subway

so this morning I had a seminar at our company's corporate headquarters on Wall Street. so instead of taking the E train to the World trade Center, for connection to the PATH and Jersey City, I took the #2 train to the Wall Street Station.

for those who don'tknow, the Wall Street station is a horror show -- a very narrow central platform separates inbound trains from outbound trains, and very narrow stairways lead passengers up from this underground sardine can towards daylight. at 8:45 in the morning it can ben quite crowded and frenetic.

and tempers are short around Wall Street these days. (gee, I wonder why?)

when I got out of the train, I met up with two of my colleagues from work -- Alan and Mindy -- who were also headed to the seminar.

so we start to walk up one of the narrow stairways....when there's a commotion at the top of the stairs.

I'm not sure exactly what happened. it involved a woman who was headed up the stairs and two young men who were headed down. she was screaming at them, something about them putting their hands on her. I think there may have been some shoving and/or slapping. one of the guys may have been pushed, he started to fall down the stairs, but caught himself before he bumped into anyone else.

Mindy was in front of me, and she took off like she was under attack. I looked back at Alan, his face was white but he was otherwise ok, so I ran after Mindy. I saw transit employees run past me towards the commotion before I caught up with Mindy. She was visibly shaken and crying.

and I knew she was flashing back to September.

back in September, Mindy was waiting at a train station at Liberty State Park in New Jersey. a psychiatric patient stabbed and killed a total stranger, and Mindy was standing right near the victim and saw everything.

Alan and I got Mindy to calm down and then we got out of that station as fast as we could!