Thank you for your comments on the progress of the case. The information we posted was accurate according to the police and city sources that gave it to us.

“Got himself a knife” was not meant to indicate that the mugger never operated a knife before. He had, reportedly, used the gun-hand for the past few muggings and not a knife. However, to avoid confusion, we’ve corrected that as well.

Why two charges for one robbery? It’s actually common for a criminal defendant to be indicted on multiple charges stemming from one incident. In this case, the suspect has been charged with one count of robbery involving the display of a firearm and one count of robbery involving the use or threatened use of a dangerous instrument. The latter is the “top count” which makes a lot of sense because the DA is more likely to get a conviction on that count.. You can be guilty of robbery involving the threatened use of a dangerous instrument (e.g., a gun) without actually having a dangerous instrument. According to James’ account of the incident, the robber threatened him with a pretend gun. That’s enough for a conviction on the top count if proven to the satisfaction of the jury. Technically, you don’t need to have a gun to be found guilty of first degree robbery involving display of a firearm if it appears that the perpetrator has a gun, but it’s an affirmative defense if it can be shown that there wasn’t really a gun. So if a jury finds by a preponderance of the evidence that the suspect didn’t have a gun but really only had his hand wrapped up in a t-shirt, the charge gets reduced to second-degree which means less jail time.

And everyone knows he didn’t have a gun. It was pretty darned obvious that he had a fist balled up in a sweatshirt/t-shirt. In fact, in other circumstances, it would have been comical.

And the “subway bandit” did not “get himself a knife” after the June 7th incident. He already had a knife and had used it in at least two of the six robberies that he perpetrated prior to June 7th. This information was reported in several news sources, and was included on at least some of the wanted posters that were posted throughout the transit system. I know that because, as I lay in the hospital with a fractured eye socket, the police showed me a poster with a sketch and a description of a mugging at knife point on the 1 train in the Bronx in April 2009. But the important point is that, assuming all these robberies were perpetrated by the same man, there was nothing about the June 7th incident that inspired him to procure a knife. He had already committed more than one robbery at knife-point.