A veteran subway prepare operator left for useless after being stabbed 11 occasions inside a Brooklyn station final yr misplaced an opportunity to face off along with his attacker Wednesday when the person refused to indicate up in particular person for his sentencing.
Jonathan Davalos, who pleaded responsible in August to the tried homicide of Myran Pollack on the Crown Heights-Utica Avenue station, as an alternative appeared just about on a display screen inside a courtroom, forcing his beforehand agreed-upon sentencing of 15 years behind bars to be postponed till Dec. 15.
Pollack, who labored for the MTA for greater than 25 years, just lately retired after sustaining extreme accidents final Oct. 8, when he was stabbed within the again, legs and arms when he woke Davalos up on the No. 4 line’s final cease in Brooklyn.
“I used to be trying ahead to seeing him as a result of the final time I noticed him, he was above me with a knife,” Pollack mentioned whereas leaning on a cane outdoors the Brooklyn courthouse.
For Davalos’s earlier court docket appearances, Pollack had stayed out of the courtroom. However he confirmed up for the scheduled sentencing Wednesday in hopes of talking on to the 27-year-old Bronx man.
“I wished to let him know precisely how a lot ache that I’m going by way of due to that incident,” he mentioned. “And to this present day, I’m nonetheless going by way of the identical issues over and over.”
Sources advised THE CITY that Davalos — who was on probation on the time of the assault for a earlier assault on a transit employee in The Bronx — derailed the sentencing by attempting to hurt himself earlier than the Wednesday court docket look.
However after prosecutors and protection legal professionals initially agreed to a digital listening to, the sentencing was then postponed as a result of, beneath a earlier case regulation, it will have risked the sentencing being overturned.
Pollack and supporters from Transport Employees Native Union 100 and MTA officers who additionally confirmed up for the sentencing had been left disillusioned when State Supreme Court docket Justice Carolina Holderness postponed the ultimate step within the case.
“Justice for Myran Pollack has not been carried out, so we’ve to come back again but once more,” mentioned John Chiarello, president of TWU Native 100. “I’m past phrases, I’m actually past phrases.”
Pollack, 60, was 4 months from retirement when Davalos attacked him on the prepare after which chased him onto a station platform. In keeping with the MTA, he was amongst 46 subway staff assaulted in 2024, when assaults in opposition to transit workers fell by greater than 30% from the earlier yr.
“It’s simply unacceptable that he must undergo the sort of assault,” mentioned New York Metropolis Transit President Demetrius Crichlow, who was among the many crowd of courtroom supporters. “It’s a disgrace that the system has extended it.”
Pollack mentioned the backing from coworkers and transit supervisors was “overwhelming.”
“I do know I don’t deserve the sort of outpouring,” he mentioned. “However I actually recognize and love all of them for popping out to help me.”
