A beloved Upper West Sider — a retired special education teacher who lived quietly on West 85th Street for decades — was killed Thursday night in a sudden, unprovoked attack in another Manhattan neighborhood, and the circumstances surrounding the suspect’s whereabouts in the hours beforehand have triggered a City Hall investigation and renewed outrage over how New York handles people in psychiatric crisis.
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Ross Falzone, 76, was approaching the 18th Street subway station at Seventh Avenue in Chelsea just before 9:30 p.m. on Thursday, May 7, when a man came up behind him and shoved him with both hands down the entire flight of station stairs, according to police and prosecutors. Surveillance video reportedly captured Falzone being propelled into the air before striking his head midway down the staircase and landing motionless at the bottom. He suffered a traumatic brain injury, a fractured spine and a fractured rib, and was pronounced dead at Bellevue Hospital just before 3 a.m. Friday.Falzone lived alone in a rent-stabilized apartment on West 85th Street near Amsterdam Avenue. His building manager, Kenji Asazuma, told Gothamist that Falzone was a quiet man who had recently undergone hip or neck surgery, and that neighbors had been keeping an eye on him as he navigated the building’s stairs. He held a doctorate from Columbia University and spent his career teaching special education, according to his sister Donna Falzone, who spoke with ABC7 on Friday.
“He wouldn’t hurt anybody. He’s a bag of bones. He’s not even 100 pounds,” Donna said, describing her brother as a great brother and uncle who had just celebrated her birthday with her in Manhattan days earlier. “To get a call like that at 4 in the morning … to find out your brother’s minding his own business, three witnesses, and push down the steps and left for dead.”
Police arrested 32-year-old Rhamell Burke, who is homeless, at Penn Station on Friday afternoon. He was arraigned Saturday on a charge of second-degree murder before Manhattan Criminal Court Judge Linda Capitti, who ordered him held without bail. According to the New York Daily News, Burke smiled as the judge entered the courtroom and asked, “Is there anything else judge?” after being charged. Manhattan Assistant District Attorney Alex Grayes told the court the men had no prior interaction of any kind. Burke’s attorney, Margaret DaRocha, asked that her client receive medical and psychiatric care while incarcerated.
The most troubling element of the case — and the part now driving a city investigation — is what Burke was doing in the hours before the attack. Around 3:30 p.m. Thursday, roughly six hours before Falzone was killed, officers encountered Burke acting erratically outside the NYPD’s 17th Precinct stationhouse on East 51st Street, where he had pulled a stick from a trash can and held it at his side. Officers de-escalated the situation, transported him to Bellevue at 3:39 p.m., and turned him over to the psychiatric emergency room at 3:52 p.m. He was discharged at 4:39 p.m. — less than an hour after arriving, as CBS New York reported.
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Burke had been arrested four times since February on charges ranging from petit larceny to burglary to assault — including an alleged assault on a Port Authority police officer and an alleged assault on a stranger — and had been freed without bail or placed on supervised release each time, according to court records cited by the Daily News. He had four open cases at the time of Thursday’s attack, which Judge Capitti cited in remanding him.Mayor Zohran Mamdani directed NYC Health + Hospitals on Friday to conduct an immediate internal investigation into Burke’s evaluation and discharge at Bellevue, along with a system-wide review of psychiatric evaluation and discharge protocols across the city’s public hospitals. He has also asked the State Department of Health to determine whether Bellevue followed existing protocols. “I am horrified by the killing of Ross Falzone and the circumstances that led to it,” Mamdani said in a statement, adding that New Yorkers deserve answers. Bellevue, in a response noted by PIX11, said it welcomed the review and expected to be found to have provided appropriate care.
Falzone’s family was unsparing in their assessment of who they hold responsible. “The State of New York is responsible for this tragedy,” his brother-in-law Richard told the Daily News. “They’re responsible for his death.”
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