Police Arrest Suspect In Menacing Aboard Manhattan Subway

NEW YORK (CBSNewYork) -- Police on Tuesday arrested a man they say threatened a straphanger with a knife while he was riding a subway with a small child last month.

23-year-old Edgar Rodriguez, of Manhattan, was taken into custody and charged with menacing after he was allegedly caught on cell phone video threatening another passenger in an expletive-laced tirade, waving the weapon and spitting at the passenger before getting off the northbound E train at West 4th Street.

VIDEO: Father With Young Son Pulls Knife On Another Straphanger On Subway

That passenger tells CBS2 the incident started after he confronted Rodriguez for hitting the child he was traveling with.

"He was crying, and that's why caught everybody's attention – the noise when he hit him on the arm," the man said. "I have two kids. I wouldn't do anything like that. That's why I couldn't hold myself when I say, 'Listen, what you're doing is not right.'"

The victim said he takes the E train every day and he's worried the suspect will retaliate.

"If he pull a knife and threaten your life in front of everybody and holding his child at the same time, he's a guy (that) doesn't have anything to lose," he said.

He said he was just trying to do the right thing, but now will never intervene again. Rodriguez was also charged with two counts of endangering the welfare of a child and criminal possession of a weapon.