Subway slap - A brawl between a young man and a woman, on a West Fourth Street bound F-train in Lower Manhattan's Greenwich Village this past Saturday, is stirring a debate about whether it amounts to abuse when males respond to females who provoke them aggressively.
The infamous subway slap, which was caught on a video camera, occurred after Danay Howard, 21, verbally taunted Jorge Pena, 25, about his appearance.
Howard insinuated that Pena, who reportedly works as a part-time bouncer, had little money and couldn't afford better clothes. "You got a bum ass eight ball jacket that came out in 1990," she said, before telling him to increase his income.
Howard was supported by her friends, who laughed at her comments. At some point in her heated rant, her friends spot the commuter recording the incident on his phone and Howard tries to get him to stop by repeatedly knocking the device off his hand.
Pena, who was wearing a leather jacket and a fur hat, kept collected in the early stages of their confrontation. He is actually seen smiling when Howard comments about his appearance. At some point, he is heard exchanging some uncomplimentary remarks with Howard before she smacks him in the head with a pair of shoes.
Pena then delivers the infamous subway slap, which knocked Howard off balance. Another male, identified as Kevin Gil, 21, then approaches Pena and gets into a fist fight with him. The train was thrown into a state of confusion as the other commuters scrambled away to escape getting drawn into the exchanges.
On Wednesday, Whoopi Goldberg and her co-hosts on 'The View' - Rosie Perez and Ashanti - weighed in on the incident. All three women noted that Howard was wrong to provoke Pena and probably deserved the infamous subway slap.
"If you slap anybody - but particularly women - if you slap, put your hands on somebody, you cannot be guaranteed that he's not going to slap the [expletive] out of you," Goldberg said.
NY Daily News has reported that Howard, Pena, Gil and one of Howard's friends in the video - Shanique Campbell - were all arrested by the police in connection with the subway slap incident when the train reached its station.
While Howard, Pena and Gil have been charged with disorderly conduct and misdemeanor assault, Howard is being leveled with felony assault for striking Pena with her shoes.
On Monday, the DA's office acquitted Pena of any wrongdoing after reviewing the footage of the subway slap incident. The court agreed that he acted out of self defense.
Meanwhile, the Dominican-native has noted that he agrees a man should not hit a girl, but he says Howard left him with no choice. "She put me in a position that I had no choice. She tried to kill me," he said. Nonetheless, the father of a 20-month-old child says he will apologize to Howard if he ever meets her again.
It is unclear when Howard, Gil and Campbell will be arraigned in court over their involvement in the subway slap incident and the subsequent fallout.
The video of the subway slap incident, which was titled "Man smacks the soul out of girl on the NY Subway", has gone viral since it was uploaded on Youtube; getting over 4 million views.
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