Woman bites rider who asks to move bag from seat in New York subway

A woman who took a bite out of another passenger in a dispute over a seat on a crowded subway was being sought for assault, the New York City police said.

The attack occurred on a Manhattan-bound "F" train from Queens a week earlier, when a 45-year-old woman asked the suspect to remove her belongings from a seat so she could sit, said Lieutenant Thomas Antonetti, spokesman for the New York Police Department.

When the rider did not respond, the woman attempted to sit down anyway.

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"The suspect became enraged pushing the victim, scratching her on the chest, pulling her hair and biting her on her forearm causing a laceration and bleeding," the NYPD said in a statement.

The suspect fled the train when it stopped at a station but not before the victim snapped a cellphone picture of her baring her teeth, which police shared with the public to help track down the suspect.

"Caught in the act," Antonetti said.

The rider was taken to the hospital but has since been released.

In December, the Metropolitan Transportation Authority, which operates the city's subways, launched "Courtesy Counts, Manners Make a Better Ride," a campaign that urges customers extend kindnesses such as removing packages from seats and refraining from hogging space by sitting with their legs wide apart, known to New Yorkers as "manspreading."

The campaign includes posters aimed at shaming people who exhibit such discourteous behavior as clipping their nails onboard, using straphanger poles for acrobatic acts and standing by doors blocking the flow of riders in the mostly underground transit system.

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"That should be standard operating procedure for human beings," Antonetti said.