Pete Donohue, Rocco Parascandola and Samuel Goldsmith, staff writers with the Daily News, have tracked down the man responsible for pulling the emergency brake on the D train on Saturday. Although police credited the one-minute delay caused by the brake with helping them secure the 53rd St. station following Dwight Johnson’s murder, officials warned against pulling the brake as it often delays emergency response teams. Furthermore, as the Daily News editorial writers note today, pulling the cord creates an “isolated death trap” in the middle of a dark tunnel.
Still, Vincent Martinez’s story is illuminating. He says that alleged killer Gerardo Sanchez kept yelling at Johnson, “You should have let me sit down” and that Johnson did not punch Sanchez, as was originally reported. Martinez, a security guard, first tried to knock on the door of the train driver’s cab, but when the driver refused to come out, he pulled the emergency brake instead. Later, Martinez told police that he did not know who pulled the brake and that he didn’t see anything. He says he didn’t want to get arrested for pulling the brake cord after the motorman told Martinez that he should not have pulled the cord. It sounds as though this D train on Saturday morning was a gruesome and bloody scene for those 30 people in the car with Sanchez and Johnson.
In 1980, through the first eight months of the year, the crime-riddled New York City subway system witnessed 15 murders, up from ten over the first eight months of 1979. Saturday morning’s 
Planning on transferring from the 2 or 3 at Fulton St. to another subway line this weekend? Well, don’t. 
