Aunt of NYC straphanger fatally shoved in front of train begged him to stop taking subways: ‘I was petrified for him’
NY Post
The aunt of the straphanger who was shoved in front of a train and killed in a random attack at an East Harlem station begged her nephew to stop taking the subway days before his death, citing the uptick in violence underground.
Christine Conte, 70, shared the details of her final phone call with nephew Jason Volz, 55, outside a Manhattan courtroom after his alleged killer was indicted on Friday.
Conte said she pleaded with Volz to not take the subway and instead take a bus when he reached out on Saturday to tell her about how excited he was about a first date he had planned with a new gal pal.
“I heard all the accidents going on — I was petrified for him,” Conte said, fighting back tears.
“I worried like crazy for him. I said, ‘Jason, don’t go on the f’in trains, please.’ There’s so many killers.”
The number of felony assaults in the transit system jumped 53% last year from pre-pandemic times, with 570 such attacks in 2023 compared to 373 in 2019, the latest NYPD data show.
