It is unknown why 24-year-old Briant Marc Rowe climbed onto the tracks at 6am on November 19 at the Newkirk Avenue stop. He had been out that night with his Baruch College fraternity brothers and had called home earlier without a hint of anything "untoward." Rowe was eventually found decapitated by the force of a northbound train 200 feet from the station, under two blocks from his mother's home.
MTA workers conducted a search for 30 to 40 minutes for Rowe but the manner of search is at issue. Rowe's mother, Marva Nelson, contends the MTA should have stopped train service after having found out about Rowe. Instead, train workers boarded a slow-moving out-of-service train to look for Rowe in the tunnels. Had they shut the trains in the area down, the northbound train would have never been there to hit Rowe and he would still be alive today, say the family.
Rowe is reported to have had no history with mental illness or substance abuse.
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