KEY POINTS
- Adam Klotz was coming home on a train after watching an NFL playoff game at a bar when the incident happened
- The suspects immediately fled the train at the 18th Street station after the assault
- Klotz was taken to Bellevue Hospital with non-life-threatening injuries
A Fox News meteorologist was beaten by a group of teenagers after he attempted to stop them from harassing another passenger on a Manhattan subway early Sunday.
Weatherman Adam Klotz, 37, recalled the violent attack in an Instagram story video, appearing bruised and battered as he opened up about what happened as he was returning home. Klotz said he was on a train after watching the New York Giants NFL playoff game at a bar when he spotted an older man being pestered by seven or eight teens.
“I was like, ‘Yo, guys, cut that out.’ And they decided, ‘Alright, if he’s not going to get it, you’re going to get it.’ And boy did they give it to me,” Klotz said. “They had me on the ground. My ribs are all bruised up, too. They got their hits in.”
Unnamed police sources told the New York Post that the meteorologist was riding a No. 1 train at around 1:15 a.m. when he confronted the teens, who may have been smoking weed at the time of the incident.
The suspects immediately fled the train at the 18th Street station after the assault. However, three of them — two 15-year-olds and a 17-year-old — were caught by police, sources told the outlet. Police eventually freed them.
“Juvenile reports were prepared, and their parents were called to pick them up,” a representative for the NYPD told the New York Post Sunday.
It’s still unclear why the three nabbed suspects were released without facing any charges, but an NYPD spokesman claimed that the department did not have that option due to their ages and the fact that the crime involved an apparent misdemeanor.
Meanwhile, a rep for the city Law Department, which prosecutes juvenile crimes in New York City, said in an email to the outlet that the victim has to file a complaint with the Department of Probation before it gets involved. Probation would then decide whether to transfer and refer the case to the Law Department for prosecution, the representative said.
The 17-year-old suspect could have been charged as an adult before the state’s “Raise the Age” law, which took effect in 2019. The revised law raised the age for a youngster to be charged as an adult from 17 to 18.
Klotz was rushed to Bellevue Hospital and was treated for non-life-threatening injuries.
In his video, in which Klotz can be seen with two black eyes, among other injuries, he seemed unaware that the three suspects were released without being charged.
“You should see the other guy,” Klotz joked in the video. “My side — don’t laugh — my side is so much worse than my face. And the thing is the other guy is not really a guy. It’s children. Five or six children.”
“Where are the parents?” he said. “Parents, watch your children.”
He confirmed that the man he had been defending was “fine” following the incident, adding: “And the cops grabbed a couple of these kids, and, you know, I got X-rays. I’m OK. This is all going to heal. So, it’s all good.”
Klotz, who is from Indiana, added, “New York City! What a place. The Big Apple.”