Elizabeth Gomes May Lose Sight Following Attack on the Subway

On Tuesday, September 27th, Waheed Foster, a 41-year-old man on parole for beating his grandmother to death, dragged Elizabeth Gomes, 33, across the Howard Beach-JFK Airport station before repeatedly kicking and punching her in the face.

Before the Tuesday morning attack, Gomes had just exited the A train and was en route to JFK Airport where she works as a security guard. Gomes and her husband told The NYPost that before she was attacked, she had tried to avoid Foster, as he was ranting about Satan in the train station.

Gomes recounted the incident as she walked with her husband to Queen’s Court for a grand-jury hearing in the case while donning sunglasses to cover her severely injured right eye. She said, “He was targeting me or something.” Gomes continued, stating that Foster was “ranting about the devil, about…a whole bunch of stuff that you don’t even want to hear at five in the morning.”

“Honestly, being a New Yorker, we hear these things all the time. We try to avoid it, you know,” said Gomes. “And it’s just so sad that even though we try to avoid it, these things still happen to us. I still can’t put that day together. I don’t even know.”

Foster was detained without bail after being charged with assault.

In 1995, when the suspect was only 14 years old, he fatally beat his 82-year-old foster grandmother over a dispute with money, according to sources who spoke to The NYPost.

According to police, Foster was also arrested for assaulting a woman with a screwdriver, criminal mischief, robbery, and larceny. In 2010, while in a mental institution, he also stabbed a woman in the face.

He was out on parole for the 2010 assault until 2024 at the time of the attack last week.

Gomes’ spouse, Clement Tucker, expressed shock and said, “This guy killed his grandmother at 14 years old. He caused a lot of people harm. Why is he out in public?”

Gomes sustained serious injuries to her face and eyes, leaving her blind during recovery. The husband continued, “It’s crazy; if she doesn’t get some help right away, she’s going to lose her sight.”

Mayor Eric Adams announced in June that he was stepping up police presence in the subway and returning officers to solo patrols, which had been discontinued following the killings of two police officers in 2014. Following her attack, Gomes has stressed the importance of increasing police presence in subway stations.