A teen slashed in the face and robbed of his cellphone on a Bronx subway train grabbed a knife from his attacker and stabbed his mugger five times with it during the ensuing bloody brawl, police said Friday.
The wounded mugger remained in the hospital on Friday, awaiting charges for the 7 p.m. robbery on the Bronx No. 2 train, cops said.
The 18-year-old victim and his friend were on the train as it approached the Pelham Parkway station near White Plains Road in the Pelham Parkway section of the Bronx on Thursday evening when the suspect and seven others walking through the train car stopped the victim and asked to see his cellphone.
When the victim pulled his phone out, the mugger grabbed it and started to walk off with it, sparking a brawl, cops were told.
During the fight, a knife clattered onto the subway car’s floor, cops said. The mugger grabbed the knife and slashed his victim in the face, causing a deep gash.
As the fight continued on, the victim grabbed the knife from the mugger and plunged it into him five times, cops said.
EMS arrived and rushed the mugger to Jacobi Hospital, where he is expected to survive.
His victim was taken to Montefiore Medical Center where his slash wound was treated.
The victim’s friend was also punched in the face during the brawl.
The mugger’s crew ran off. Detectives believe the group is responsible for several similar robberies in the Bronx and on borough subway trains, a police source with knowledge of the case said.
Charges against the mugger and his victim were not immediately filed.
As of Sunday, cops were seeing a decline in both robberies and assaults, according to NYPD statistics.
Robberies have dropped by 9% from 885 this time last year to 798. Assaults had dropped by 3%, from 1,773 to 1,706.
In February, NYPD Commissioner Jessica Tisch acknowledged the need to address the violence in the Bronx, announcing that 200 additional officers will be assigned to the Bronx after it is divided into separate North and South borough commands this spring.
Patrol boroughs are commands that oversee local police precinct operations. Manhattan, Queens and Brooklyn have two patrol boroughs, while the Bronx and Staten Island have only had one.
“For too long, the Bronx has experienced more crime per capita than any other borough while operating under a structure that has not kept pace with the demands placed on it,” Tisch said, during her State of the NYPD address.
The borough accounted for more than a third of all shooting incidents and shooting victims citywide in 2025, roughly three times the more populated boroughs of Queens and Manhattan, she noted.