Witness Account: Chris Olsen Experiences Stabbing Incident on New York Subway as City's Train Violence Surges
#### Surviving the Big Apple's Underground: A TikToker's Close Call
A Haunting Encounter on the NYC Subway
Article by Jake Jackson
Published: January 3, 2025, 10:00 AM
Reading Time: 2 minutes
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In the heart of New York City, actor Caroline Haroldson and influencer Chris Olsen experienced a harrowing ordeal on a Thursday evening—a chilling encounter that left them shaken to the core.
Olsen, 27, shared the details of the incident in a gripping video, which has since garnered roughly 733,000 likes. The video finds the duo telling their story while visibly shaken on a bustling New York street.
"We just basically witnessed a stabbing and almost died on the subway ourselves," Olsen began, his voice trembling. As they rode the subway, they heard a commotion, with one passenger screaming. Florence, evidently uneasy, voiced her concerns, but Olsen downplayed the situation, assuring her it was "just another regular subway yelling." Little did they know, one of the passengers was brandishing a large knife.
As the altercation escalated, Olsen recounted, "The guy behind us starts rushing towards the guy in front of us, and every single person on the train gets up and starts running right at Cara and me because we're near the end of the car now."
A chaotic scene followed, with the duo frantically trying to escape the train, grappling with locked doors, and a swarm of panicked passengers pushing them forward. Their adrenaline surged as they sprang into action, ripping open stuck doors and navigating the pandemonium. "We don't know if someone has brought out a gun. We don't know who else has been stabbed," Olsen admitted.
Their harrowing tale echoes another distressing event that occurred on the New York City subway system just days prior. On December 22, 2024, a woman identified as 57-year-old Debrina Kawam, tragically lost her life in a fiery incident in a Brooklyn subway car. Another unsettling event transpired on New Year's Eve, as a man was shoved in front of a train, resulting in a fractured skull.
Coincidentally, two men were stabbed in unrelated attacks at Manhattan stations mere minutes apart from Olsen's ordeal. It remains unclear if the attack he witnessed was one of the reported incidents.
With a heartfelt plea to his followers, Olsen closed his video, "The subway—please stay safe. Just please stay safe. There's been too much that's been happening there."
Current Events and Statistics: A Closer Look at Subway Violence in New York City
While overall transit crime has witnessed a decline in 2025, there's been a concerning surge in specific categories of violent incidents, notably felony assaults, which have escalated by approximately 19%. It's essential to acknowledge that a significant portion of these assaults, approximately 36%, focused on NYPD officers and MTA workers—an unsettling trend indicating a growing violent attitude toward public service personnel.
Various factors contribute to this surge in assaults, encompassing mental health challenges, weaknesses within the judicial system, and heightened crowding coupled with more aggressive police enforcement efforts. Responding to these spikes in violence and chaotic encounters, Commissioner Jessica Tisch has prioritized subway safety, dispatching additional officers and intensifying enforcement, albeit broader crime trends in NYC have seen increases in bias-related incidents and reported rapes—partly due to legislative changes.
- In the wake of their harrowing experience, influencer Chris Olsen has used his social media platform to share the details of the stabbings they witnessed on a New York City subway train, an event that falls under the category of 'crime-and-justice'.
- As the number of violent incidents on the New York City subway system continues to rise, general news outlets are focusing on the surge in felony assaults, including the case involving Chris Olsen and Caroline Haroldson, shedding light on entertainment news that has a darker undercurrent, crossing over into 'social-media' and 'general-news' categories.
