Colin Flaherty: Don't Talk To The Black Kids On The Train

Colin Flaherty Commentary Video "Mom Beaten on Subway Over Son's Costume Question Speaks Out in Exclusive Interview"
A mother who was beaten on a train after her 8-year-old son asked her why another child on the train was wearing a costume said her attacker hit her so hard that her "feet lifted off the floor."

Margaret Nielson, 50, was on an E train at 74th Street and Roosevelt Avenue with her son two days after Halloween when her son noticed another child wearing a costume, she told NBC 4 New York in an exclusive interview.

The costume caught her son's eye because he enjoys wearing costumes and often dresses up as different superheroes, Nielson said.

"... [H]e looked over and he saw a little boy about six wearing a bumblebee costume," Nielson said. "To see somebody his age wearing stuff that he wears, and especially out on the train... he thought that was the coolest thing."

Police say the two women with the bumblebee costume-clad child were upset by Nielson's son's comment.

"She got up, and she was screaming at me, screaming at me," Nielson recalled. "She started cursing at me, telling me to tell my kid to show some respect, and have some respect."

"I was like, 'He wasn't speaking to you, he was speaking to me. And it was an innocent comment from an 8-year-old kid,'" Nielson said.

That's when one of the women attacked Nielson, she recalled.

https://www.nbcnewyork.com/news/local/Mom-Beaten-on-Subway-Over-Sons-Costume-Question-Speaks-Out-500523512.html
By Marc Santia
Published Nov 14, 2018 at 4:51 PM | Updated at 7:09 PM EST on Nov 14, 2018