Fred Reeves, 58, the conductor of a crowded Brooklyn train where a disturbed passenger was shot in the head with his own firearm during a rush-hour assault, now feels unsafe at work.
“I’m shellshocked,” Reeves, residing in East Flatbush, Brooklyn, disclosed on Saturday. “My nerves are just shot.”
Reeves, better known as rapper “Doc Ice” from legendary Brooklyn hip-hop groups UTFO and Whodini, said he immediately sprang into action Thursday upon seeing distressed riders as the train neared the Hoyt-Schermerhorn streets station.
Panicked passengers started rushing toward Reeves’ car, frantically knocking on the door as the conflict between Younece Obuad and an unhinged DaJuan Robinson escalated to gunfire.
Gun-toting straphanger Robinson, 36, instigated a fight with Obuad, 32, by wrongly slamming him for being a migrant — before the two came to blows.
Reeves, who started working as a subway conductor in 2018, told riders to remain calm and not to pull the emergency brake since cops would be at the station, he recalled.
“So, I closed the door, and I’m talking to my supervisors: ‘This is 16-18, apple, Lefferts, 2-7, coming into Hoyt-Schermerhorn, we need police and emergency service,’” Reeves said. “I’m thinking it was fight because the people flooded my position because it’s in my car but not my cab.”
Seconds later, Reeves heard multiple shots.
The train had just pulled into the station.
“You just hear, ‘bow, bow, bow,’” he recalled. “And man, I ducked and dipped to the other side. I then opened the doors and people flooded out, screaming and crying. And then I look, and I see the guy is on the floor.”
Cops responded to the scene with guns drawn.
A frantic passenger tried to get Reeves to let a young girl inside his cab during the commotion, but he declined to do so, citing MTA policy.