The freelance photographer who took the pictures, R. Umar Abbasi, defended his actions in an interview. “I’m being unfairly beaten up in the press,” he said at his apartment in Greenwich Village on Tuesday, before leading a reporter to the 49th Street subway platform to re-enact what had happened.
Mr. Abbasi said he was wearing a 20-odd pound backpack of camera gear for an assignment, and was standing near the 47th Street entrance to the platform when he saw the man fall on the tracks. “Nobody helped,” he said. “People started running away.”
“I saw the lights in the distance,” signaling a subway’s approach, he said, so he started firing off flashes on the camera — 49 times in all, he said — as a means of warning the driver.
“I was not aiming to take a photograph of the man on the track,” he said, later adding that his arm was fully outstretched, the camera far from his face.
“If I had reached him in time, I would have pulled him up,” he said. At one point, the man said to have shoved Mr. Han came toward Mr. Abbasi, he said, so he backed up against a wall, still flashing his camera. He estimated the victim was on the tracks for 10 or 15 seconds before he was struck.
“The driver said he slowed down because he saw my flashes,” he said.
Mr. Abbasi said he brought police officers to The Post’s offices, where they examined the pictures for any images of the perpetrator, and he left the camera’s memory card with editors at The Post. He was not part of the decision to publish the pictures, he said.
“Every time I close my eyes, I see the image of death,” he said. “I don’t care about a photograph.”
Mr. Abbasi’s wife, Joan Sherman, said, “I understand people being heroes, but you also have to be realistic about what you’re capable of and your strength.”
The police commissioner, Raymond W. Kelly, when asked about the photographer’s actions, said: “I don’t know. I wasn’t there.”
“I don’t know how fast the train was coming in,” he added. News reports emerged saying Mr. Han had been drinking before the exchange, which occurred at about 12:30 p.m., after he argued with his wife. Mr. Han approached the man who pushed him, witnesses said, though it was unclear why. The man had been seen mumbling to himself. The encounter was a new wrinkle.
