A homeless man indicted in a gruesome deadly stabbing aboard a New York City subway train now reportedly stabbed a mental health worker in the face and arm at Rikers Island.
Claude White, a 33-year-old homeless man indicted in the June subway killing of Bronx resident Tavon Silver, allegedly attacked a Rikers Island mental health clinician over the weekend, both the New York Post and the New York Daily News reported, citing multiple sources within the corrections department.
The 6 feet, 3 inches, 319 pound White allegedly used a 9-inch piece of sharpened metal in the attack that unfolded in a housing area in the George R. Vierno Center just before 5 p.m. on Saturday. The mental health clinician, a 52-year-old licensed clinical social worker since at least 2008, suffered three puncture wounds to the right side of the face and puncture to the left forearm. The victim was transported to New York Presbyterian Hospital and required stitches, the sources said.
The inmate was brought to Bellevue Hospital for psychiatric evaluation, and additional charges in connection to the attack on the social worker were expected. The Bronx District Attorney’s Office told the Daily News that the investigation into the Rikers Island incident remained ongoing.
Claude White, 33, is transported from the NYPD 13th Precinct station house in Manhattan, New York City on Monday, June 19, 2023. (Gardiner Anderson/New York Daily News/Tribune News Service via Getty Images)
White was indicted last month for allegedly stabbing 32-year-old Silver on the 4 train following a dispute over drugs, the Manhattan District Attorney’s Office said July 17. He is charged with two counts of second-degree murder and one count of third-degree robbery.
According to court documents and statements made on the record in court, at approximately 4:00 a.m. on June 17, White was riding a southbound 4 train when he began arguing with Silver over a crack cocaine deal gone wrong. As White held Silver down while repeatedly hitting him, he grabbed a steak knife that belonged to Silver and stabbed him twice in the chest, prosecutors said. White was arrested two days later with blood stains on his pants.
The Rikers Island jail complex stands with the Manhattan skyline in the background. Manhattan federal prosecutors are demanding an overhaul. (AP Photo/Seth Wenig, File)
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Prosecutors detailed during a prior court appearance that after White allegedly murdered Silver, sitting on top of the victim's body, he hopped off the train and was spotted "casually and callously" smoking K2 leaving the 23rd street station. White then allegedly threw the knife into the subway tunnel and put his sweatshirt in the trash.
Before the gruesome subway attack, White had been charged with a bank robbery earlier in June.
The entrance to Rikers Island, home to the main jail complex, is shown from the Queens borough as shown on Oct. 19, 2021, in New York City. The notorious jail, situated on the island in the East River between Queens and the Bronx boroughs, is under increasing scrutiny. (Spencer Platt/Getty Images)
The New York Daily News reported that he also had at least seven prior arrests for robbery, assault, and grand larceny going back to 2010.
Rikers Island, meanwhile, faces a threat of being taken over by a federal monitor amid pervasive safety concerns.
Just last week, four corrections officers were hurt in two separate attacks by inmates.
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