NYC subway passenger goes berserk as he lies on floor screaming and clawing inside his pants. Then 911 is urgently called
Difficult to react in such situations
When you’re on the subway, the possibilities for what you might witness are endless. From people filming reels and couples arguing to someone frantically running after a train, countless things can happen. However, this situation was quite different. In a TikTok video uploaded by shermquqxwu, a man can be seen screaming and clawing at his groin in the New York subway before police removed him.
The voiceover on the video, which appears to be in the news reporting format, stated, “A man on a New York subway went from lying on the floor, screaming and clawing at his own body to calmly sitting in a seat by the time police arrived.” It added, “Video shows him twisting around on the train and scratching himself nonstop. At several points, he reaches inside his pants while passengers watch from a distance, clearly unsure what is happening.”
The video then focused on the commuters’ response to the man’s actions. As the voiceover stated, a few wondered if he was experiencing a medical emergency, while others simply wanted to leave. Some handled the situation differently. “Some riders appear worried that he is sick or having some kind of medical episode. Others simply move away from him. One passenger records the scene while someone else calls 911,“ the video highlighted.
The video then highlighted how the man’s behavior changed after authorities arrived, noting that he was no longer acting unusually. “But when officers finally arrive, the situation looks completely different. The man is no longer on the floor. He is sitting quietly in a seat and appears much calmer, almost like the earlier episode never happened. Police speak with him before eventually escorting him off the train,” the video noted.
The video ends by noting that, apparently, after the cops took the man away, witnesses debated whether their response to the incident was appropriate. While some argued that keeping their distance and calling 911 was the “right move,” others considered whether the man might have been experiencing a medical episode and questioned whether filming him without offering help was appropriate.
“What if he had a knife”
Some people in the comments shared what they would have done in such a situation. One person wrote, “Wait for police what if he had a knife.” Another said, “You absolutely do NOT get within striking distance of something like this. Film it and call 911 is exactly the right move. Why do we film it? Not to put it on the Internet, but to show police and medical personnel what the situation was before they got there.”
A few others discussed a girl featured in the video who appeared to be taking an intimate photo of herself on her phone, which some people would consider odd behavior. One user commented, “HEY, nobody wants to talk about the girl in the grey & white outfit pulling up her shirt & taking selfies????” Another asked, “is anyone going to mention about the girl filming her boobies and then her tooshie.”
One individual, however, said the video was fake and had been created by joining several clips together. They wrote, “This is just a bunch of videos of different people doing weird things on the subway,” and they are not wrong. If you watch the videos carefully, the surroundings change drastically, and at certain points, the man in question also appears to change, with a completely different man becoming the primary focus of the story.
Taking this into account, it is crazy how easily people can be convinced of something simply because others present lies as facts. Such practices, even if not ill-intended, can contribute to discriminatory narratives that disadvantage certain people. For instance, if someone were actually having a medical emergency and behaved similarly to what is shown in this video, the direction of the conversation surrounding the incident might make people less willing to help them.
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