An argument over fashion escalated to a full-blown brawl on a New York City subway train around 5 a.m. on Saturday. The Washington Square Station-bound F train erupted in fisticuffs after a man slapped a woman who had hit him first.
The video of the incident begins with a young woman berating a very tall man for wearing an 8-ball jacket ‒ a style popular in the 1990s ‒ and a trapper hat, as her friends egg her on. He seems to not be reacting, until the man holding the camera gets involved, telling the woman that no one wears Steve Madden shoes anymore.
She and her friends charge at the man, and one of the group knocks the recording phone out of his hand.
“Damn, you petty as hell. You can’t even afford this new phone,” the cameraman yells at the group. The first woman hits the phone out of his hand again.
The guy in the 8-ball jacket says, “I don’t do... why you get mad?”
The woman yells at him, “You sound stupid!”
He then retorts that she’s a bitch. She hits him with her pocketbook ‒ or possibly her Steve Madden shoes, according to one YouTube commenter quoted on BroBible.
He then turns around and “smacks the soul out of” her, as the video poster titled it. The slap was loud enough for everyone else in the train car to hear.
THAT SMACK WOKE ME UP IN CALIFORNIA RT @Gawker: Man smacks woman on the F train, car explodes into all-out brawl. http://t.co/4e3Ct8dW0j
— Catfishvsthug (@catfishcatfish) November 10, 2014
And all hell breaks loose as other passengers, including the group of women, joins in the melee.
At one point, the man in the 8-ball jacket appears to have another man in a headlock as riders scream and move away from the brawl.
Two men come in to break up the fight, telling people to “relax” as they try to calm everyone down.
“From the beginning of the video, up until the girl gets smacked, it seems like she can’t help herself when it comes to talking shit at the guy who eventually winds up being unable to help himself when it comes to hitting her,” BroBible wrote.
The fight received mixed reactions online.
“You have to give credit to the many people (including the victim) who immediately went after the slapper even though he’s clearly a pretty big dude. You normally don't want to condone subway rumbles, but this is a time where it's probably OK,” Complex wrote. “The NYPD are investigating the incident, obviously. Honestly, how hard could it be to find the perpetrator? There can’t be that many tall guys in trapper hats and 8-Ball jackets walking around New York City these days.”
The New York Police Department arrested four suspects, who range in age from 20 to 25 and include the man in the coat, at the West Fourth Street station after the fight. The woman who hit the man in the coat with a high-heeled shoe was charged with felony assault; the others were charged with misdemeanor assault and disorderly conduct, WNBC reported.
“It's unclear who the winner is, but the loser is clearly the ugly flappy hat,” New York Magazine noted, referring to the man in the 8-ball jacket.
First rule of F Train Fight Club... http://t.co/cPe0ZxoOeO
— Carl Franzen (@carlfranzen) November 10, 2014
Some viewers sided with the man with the so-called bad sense of fashion.
“The slap was deserved,” said one commenter on the NY Daily News’ article. “Considering the size of the man she chose to provoke, she is very lucky it wasn't a punch. Nuff said.”
She hit him first investigation over.. RT @GlobalGrind: NYPD investigating brawl on F train after man slaps woman http://t.co/w3BZA3B2kh
— Reggie Conquest (@ReggConquest) November 10, 2014
Others decried the use of violence at all.
“No one should have hit anyone,” said a commenter on Gawker. “That’s it.”
The video has gone viral, with nearly 800,000 views on YouTube.