Career criminal, who’s own family knows he’s a menace, busted for NYC subway shove

A Brooklyn career criminal has been busted in Friday’s caught-on-video subway shoving — and the suspect’s kin say they were even so fed up with him that they posted signs outlawing him from their home.

Lamale McRae — who previously did 20 years behind bars for attempted murder — was identified as a suspect in last week’s attack with the help of the surveillance footage and facial-recognition technology, police sources said.

The 41-year-old suspect was arrested by the Queens Warrants Squad on Monday near his Brooklyn home, sources said.

Relatives told The Post that they were already far too weary of McRae’s antics and finally posted a sign on the stairwell in their Brooklyn building urging anyone who spotted him to call the cops.

“If you see a brown skin guy sleepin [sic] in the hallway please call the police he is trespassing,” the sign reads. 

McRae’s cousin said the last straw for the family was when he allegedly stole $50 from them. 

She said her mom wrote the note banishing McRae, who has been arrested a total of more than two dozen times.

“He was off,” said the cousin, who only gave her first name, Kay. “Something is wrong with him. That’s why he can’t stay here. He’s been off for two years now.

She said McRae even once attacked the local mailman.

“The mailman was so scared that they changed the route,” Kay said. “He pinned the mailman up. It was so bad we couldn’t get mail for a whole month.”

She said her cousin has a psych history that worsened when his mother died from dementia about two years ago.

“He needs to be medicated,” Kay said of McRae. “He was in Woodhull [Medical and Mental Health Center in Brooklyn], but they let him go.”

Still, the relative said she was shocked to learn her cousin is accused of shoving a stranger onto train tracks, saying the incident “wasn’t his character, period.

“He was a good person and went crazy out of nowhere,” Kay said.

But a neighbor said McRae had been acting bizarrely for the past several years.

“It’s not like there wasn’t things leading up to this,” the resident said. “He had some incidents attacking cars out front. He was mad at the cars or whatever.

“But it’s very sad,” the woman added. 

McRae was charged in the unprovoked assault on straphanger David Martin, who was waiting for an L-train to go to work at a trendy Manhattan eatery when he was pounced on, police and his family said.

McRae previously served nearly two decades in prison for a 1997 attempted murder and robbery in The Bronx, which was committed when he was around 17, according to police sources and records. He was paroled in the case in May 2018.

The suspect was picked up for last week’s crime shortly before 11:30 a.m. Monday and charged with attempted murder, assault, reckless endangerment and harassment. He was ordered held without bail at his arraignment early Tuesday morning.

The violent Friday afternoon attack, which left Martin bruised and battered, is just the latest example of the recent spike in transit crimes in the Big Apple.

Martin’s mom, Audrey, told The Post on Sunday that her son was blindsided by the shocking caught-on-video attack at the Wycoff and Myrtle avenues station around 2:40 p.m.

Surveillance footage shows the brute biding his time on the other side of the platform, then charging at Martin and pushing him onto the tracks before fleeing.

Gregory P. Mango

Gregory P. Mango

Gregory P. Mango

Martin’s mother said the attack left her son so distraught that he won’t leave home.

“He’s in a lot of pain,” Audrey Martin said. “His shoulder is completely shot. His back is completely shot. His underarm is completely shot.

“I can’t get him out of the house,” she said. “He can’t get into bed, he can’t get out of bed.”

Compounding the crisis for the family is the fact that her son has no health insurance, she said.

Other recent transit attacks include a Sunday assault on a 62-year-old commuter, who was randomly slugged and knocked onto the tracks at a Bronx station in what police said may have been part of a “knockout game” — a social media challenge where people are urged to punch strangers.

A retired NYPD cop was punched in Brighton Beach in Brooklyn last week in an incident also linked to the violent “game.”

Last week, a 26-year-old man also was randomly pushed onto the tracks at a Bronx station, while a 48-year-old man was slugged during a dispute in Queens and knocked into the path of a train, which struck him and killed him, police said.