Teen Held in Subway Attack That Killed Clerk
Police arrested a teenager Thursday in connection with a deadly subway attack that mirrored a scene from a film.
James Irons, 18, was charged with second-degree murder in the attack that claimed the life of a subway token booth clerk, Brooklyn Dist. Atty. Charles J. Hynes said. Police were seeking two more suspects.
Subway clerk Harry Kaufman, 50, died Sunday, two weeks after several male suspects squirted a flammable liquid into his token booth and set it ablaze in a botched robbery attempt.
“Money Train,” starring Wesley Snipes and Woody Harrelson, twice depicts a pyromaniac squirting gas into a token booth and lighting it, but in the movie the clerks escape unharmed.
Senate Majority Leader Bob Dole (R-Kan.) and police laid some of the blame for the attack on the movie, but transit officials say there were at least nine such attacks in the five years before the movie’s release. There were two similar cases Sunday and one Saturday. The clerks escaped injury.
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