A mentally ill woman accused of pushing two Mexican tourists off a platform and onto the tracks of a Lower East Side subway station has tried for years to get help for her illness but is consistently turned away, her family said Monday.
Ebony Butts, 42, who was charged with reckless endangerment and misdemeanor assault after the frightening, unprovoked attack Monday morning, has been in and out of hospitals, mental health facilities and shelters for half her life, her family said.
The victims suffered only minor injuries, but Butts’ sisters acknowledged that the end result could have been much worse and said Butts’ condition was a tragedy waiting to happen.
“My sister needs help,” said Tueniesha Butts, 47, the suspect’s sister, who lives in Maryland. “We shouldn’t wait until she hurts someone for us to realize that she needs help. And they put her in jail, and that’s not where she should be. If someone has mental health issues, the government and this country has enough money to help those mentally disabled people before they go out and hurt a citizen who is going to work or school, especially when their family is speaking out to try to get them help. It’s falling on deaf ears and it’s not fair that you’re putting her in jail when that’s not where she should be.”
In recent months, the New York City subway system has been the scene of a series of random attacks, most of them carried out by emotionally disturbed people, police said. In June, a mentally ill man went on a bloody rampage at the Queens Plaza subway station in Long Island City, wounding three men with a straight razor, police said.
In Monday’s incident, police said Butts attacked two women, ages 27 and 28, who were waiting for a downtown F train at the Delancey St.-Essex St. station shortly after 2:15 a.m.
Police said the foreigner pushed the elderly tourist onto the tracks around 2:15 a.m. When her friend tried to help the tourist back onto the platform, the attacker also pushed the woman onto the tracks, police said.
Other passengers then helped the two victims to reach the platform while police officers patrolling the station rushed towards the attacker and arrested him. No trains were entering the station at the time.
Medics rushed the victims to Bellevue Hospital with minor injuries. Butts, who lives in Brooklyn, was taken to the same hospital for a mental health evaluation.
MTA Chairman Janno Lieber condemned the violence Monday. “These were a few tourists,” he told reporters. “We New Yorkers all know that it hurts a little bit to see tourists have these terrible experiences.”
“I’m glad these officers intervened immediately,” he added. “That’s the key.”
Butts’ sister said she felt bad for the victims.
“I hope they can forgive my sister,” Tueniesha said. “It’s a mental illness. It’s not something she would normally do if she was in a good state of mind. My family and I are praying for them, and I hope they can forgive her.”
Tueniesha said her sister, who also faced breast cancer and related surgery, had been struggling for nearly two decades.
“I’m very concerned about her,” she said. “For 20 years, I’ve been going back and forth trying to help her. She’s on medication. I brought her to Maryland to try to take care of her. She’s diagnosed as schizophrenic, bipolar, manic and all that, and nobody acts like they want to help me.”
“All I wanted was someone to help me with her, a home help because I work. Someone to look after her because I have children of my own. I couldn’t find that.”
She said her sister had been abused.
“She was beaten badly once,” Tueniesha said. “Someone did this on the street. She was on the ground. I called the ambulance and they told me that as long as she knew what the date was, she was fine. They said she was an adult. As long as she knew what the date was and the year, she was fine.”
She said Butts needed a place to stay with professional staff to care for her.
“She needs a place where she can live, where she can have visitors and go out under supervision until she gets better.”
She said her sister had been arrested before, but she did not remember the details.
“I never saw my sister being violent,” she said. “I really wanted to bring her back before anything happened to her. I didn’t want anyone to find out she was dead.”
She said Butts’ emotional problems began when she was a young adult in New York, but her childhood was difficult. At age 5, she lost both her parents to AIDS. Tueniesha had the same mother but different fathers.
“We were put in foster homes, group homes. We were separated,” the sister said. “So she has a lot to deal with.”
She said the signs of illness were evident.
“We noticed that she had become ill after her first daughter was born,” the sister said. “She used to do things like go to the train station and leave the baby standing there. That’s when my sister and I decided to put her in the hospital.”
Tueniesha said she still remembers how her sister was before her fall.
“Ebony was the guy [who] “You couldn’t see her out there in the same outfit,” the sister said. “She loved the way she looked. She loved poetry. She loved writing music. She loved spending time with her friends.”
Clarence Butts, the suspect’s stepfather, said the family had a hard time with her.
“She’s in trouble and it seems like no one can help her,” he said. “They kept her locked up for a long time, but then they let her out and she started again. And every time we call the police to try to help her, they take her away for a minute and then she’s back on the street. She needs to be monitored 24/7.”
Lieber said his agency remains committed to expanding the MTA Police Department’s “SCOUT” teams, which pair law enforcement officers with clinicians to get New Yorkers with mental illness on the subway system into treatment — involuntarily if necessary.
Governor Hochul announced $20 million in March to expand the program.
Lieber also said Monday that road users can expect to see more of the static yellow platform barriers that the MTA began testing earlier this year.
“We will implement these measures at more stations as quickly as possible,” Lieber said.
Landing on the tracks is a passenger’s worst nightmare.
On March 9, Christian Valdez, a homeless parolee, pushed his girlfriend into the path of a Manhattan subway train, severing her legs near the knees. He told police he attacked the woman during an argument, prosecutors said.
Valdez made headlines in 2017 when he was accused of stabbing a woman and her 3-year-old daughter and then threatening to throw the girl off a Bronx fire escape.
“Christian suffers from schizophrenia and needs special help. He needs help with mental health,” said his niece, who spoke on condition of anonymity.
Carlton McPherson, 24, is charged with murder in a random attack at the 125th Street No. 4 station that killed Jason Volz, 54, on March 25.
The suspect, a Bronx resident, was released on bail after attacking a man with a cane in Brooklyn on Halloween, according to police and court documents.
McPherson was on the downtown platform when he allegedly pushed Volz onto the tracks. Moments later, a No. 4 train pulled into the station, fatally striking the victim.
Police found Volz under a train carriage. He died at the scene from serious injuries to his face and body.
McPherson has been arrested multiple times and appears to be suffering from emotional distress. According to police sources, New York police responded to at least one previous incident in which he was acting erratically.
McPherson is due back in court in September.
Other attacks on the metro have put commuters on edge.
On June 22, an emotionally disturbed man pulled out a straight razor and randomly slashed a 45-year-old man’s left ear and arm around 8:20 a.m. on an E train headed to the Jamaica Center-Parsons/Archer station to begin his joyride, police said.
The attacker got off the train at the Queens Plaza subway station in Long Island City and walked to the street where he struck again, slashing a 23-year-old man on the left side of his face and a 32-year-old man on the right side of his face on 27th Street near 43rd Avenue, cops said.
Waheed Foster, 41, was sentenced in June to 22 years in prison for following and assaulting Elizabeth Gomes, 33, on September 20, 2022, as she got off a train at the Howard Beach/JFK Airport subway station.
The brutal attack left Gomes with serious injuries, including the loss of his right eye. Foster had a long history of mental health issues, including diagnoses of schizophrenia and bipolar disorder.
