Child Molester Is Captured By Subway Riders

About a dozen subway riders captured a 42-year-old man on Monday on a platform after a woman screamed that he had sexually molested her 4-year-old daughter, police said.

They said several other passengers on a train told the mother that the man had placed his hand under the girl’s dress. The mother, the police said, then screamed at the suspect, who fled through several cars with the mother right behind him.

Struck repeatedly in the back by the pursuing mother, the suspect ran through three cars and then fled when the train came to a stop.

Hearing the mother’s screams, passengers on the platform began running after the suspect. By the time Officer Robert Hoffman heard the commotion and reached the platform, the passengers had surrounded the suspect and would not let him escape. “He looked very scared,” Hoffman said.

The police identified the suspect as Harry Rosen, 42. They said he had a record of sex crimes going back more than 20 years and was convicted of first-degree sodomy and released from prison in 1990 after serving four years.

Police said Rosen was charged with sexual abuse.

The mother and child, with a grandmother and a 7-year-old girl, were on their way to catch a bus to take them to a vacation in Maryland.

The girl was taken to a hospitalwhere she was treated and released. She and her family then caught a later bus for Maryland.