A young woman who declined to help prosecutors after a violent subway encounter now says her silence cost a stranger his life.

She and a friend were riding a Manhattan train on April 2 when Rhamell Burke struck up an unwanted conversation, the 23-year-old told the New York Post (NYP). When the pair tried to escape into another car, the 32-year-old followed and allegedly yanked her head downward in an attempt to slam her to the floor and kicked her friend in the back, she said. Officers happened to be standing nearby when they fled at the West 4th Street-Washington Square Station and arrested Burke on the spot.

Despite the violence, she walked away from the case rather than work with prosecutors, she told the NYP. Her reasoning, she said, was racial. “Maybe a part of me was just like, I don’t want to put another black man in jail, but, you know, at some point, if you are a criminal, you’re a criminal, and he was scary, he was a scary guy,” she told the outlet. (RELATED: Meet The Woke Ex-Criminal Who Went From Gov’t-Funded Activism To Running NYC Jails)

That choice now haunts her. Burke was charged with murder Friday after allegedly shoving 76-year-old retired teacher Ross Falzone down a staircase at the 18th Street subway station Thursday night, the NYP reported. Falzone died at Bellevue Hospital hours later.

Grinning accused subway shover was talented Broadway dancer who rubbed shoulders with stars: pal https://t.co/d2nIvmzOvc pic.twitter.com/FlyTcFUKJR

— New York Post (@nypost) May 10, 2026

“I regret it 100% and I actually feel really bad that a man lost his life,” she told the NYP.

Her April 2 case ended with Burke walking free. Prosecutors requested $3,000 bail, but a judge granted him supervised release instead, according to the New York Daily News (NYDW). It was one of four arrests Burke had collected since February, with each case ending in release without bail or under supervision, the outlet reported.

Officers picked Burke up again hours before the deadly shove, after he was seen acting erratically outside the 17th Precinct, ABC7 New York reported. They drove him to Bellevue at 3:39 p.m. for a psychiatric evaluation. Staff cleared him by 4:39 p.m. He killed Falzone about five hours later, ABC7 reported.

Falzone’s brother-in-law Richard placed the blame squarely on the system. “The State of New York is responsible for this tragedy,” he told the NYDW.