Woman Gets 24 Years in Jail for Fatally Pushing Man Onto Subway Tracks

[onehandle]

Source: NBC News

A woman who admitted to shoving a Hindu man off a New York City subway platform to his death in an attack motivated by religious animus has been sentenced to 24 years in prison. Erika Menendez was sentenced Wednesday after pleading guilty to manslaughter for killing Sunando Sen in December 2012 in Queens.

According to the complaint, the 33-year-old Queens woman was seen talking to herself and pacing back and forth on a No. 7 train platform at 40th Street and Queens Boulevard. As the train entered the station, the complaint says Menendez approached Sen from behind and shoved him onto the tracks. Sen was struck by the train and died of multiple blunt force trauma.

Menendez told police she did it because she has hated Muslims and Hindus since the Sept. 11, 2001, terror attacks. Queens District Attorney Richard Brown called the killing "every subway commuter's worst nightmare."

Read more: http://www.nbcnewyork.com/news/local/Erika-Menendez-Jail-Fatal-Subway-Push-304521371.html

[geek tragedy]

1. Manslaughter? How was this not straight up Murder 1?

She should be locked up the rest of her life. Not free to lurk on subway platforms to hunt for another victim in two decades.

[jwirr]

2. I thought about that also. I wonder if she now knows that Hindus had nothing to do with 9/11?

[ashling]

7. I wonder if she cares

How is this not seen as terrorism?

[AZ Progressive]

3. Maybe because the victim isn't white?

Don't expect non-whites to get justice in this country.

[kelliekat44]

4. My first thoughts. nt

[melm00se]

5. she was charged with

second-degree murder as a hate crime. From what I understand, the NY penal law lists specific offenses that can have the hate crime attachment and 1st degree murder isn't one of them.

the defendant also plead guilty to manslaughter (presumably as part of a plea deal to avoid the higher charge). This indicates that the case may not have been sufficiently strong enough to guarantee a conviction.

[exboyfil]

6. Possibly plea bargain to avoid trial on diminished capacity

She obviously needs lots of help.

[Helen Borg]

12. Yep...

[Journeyman]

8. New York only has Murder 1 for the killing of a police officer. . .

at least, that's what I remember from the coverage of John Lennon's murder.

[OnlinePoker]

9. It doesn't fall under the criteria of 1st Degree Murder

See 125.27 - http://ypdcrime.com/penal.law/article125.htm#p125.25

As someone else pointed out she was charged with 2nd degree murder and plead guilty to manslaughter. Given that she had been seen wandering up and down the platform talking to herself, I think this was probably the right charge based on this (see 125.20):

The fact that homicide was committed under the influence of extreme emotional disturbance constitutes a mitigating circumstance reducing murder to manslaughter in the first degree and need not be proved in any prosecution initiated under this subdivision.

[Fournier]

10. She copped a plea.

That's why.

[IronLionZion]

11. brown murdering brown

on the idiotic notion that a brown person must be a muslim, and the psychotic notion that muslims must die.

Hopefully she gets some mental health treatment.

Sometimes I'm sure I get more racial hostility from other non-whites than I've ever gotten from whites. I was straight up told these jobs are not for you, only for US citizens, by someone who had a Korean name. I was born and raised in America am most definitely a US Citizen.