The man accused of fatally shoving a beloved Upper West Side retired teacher down a flight of Chelsea subway stairs last month has been indicted for murder, the Manhattan District Attorney’s office announced Wednesday.
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A grand jury charged Rhamell Burke, 32, with one count of second-degree murder in the death of 76-year-old Ross Falzone, who lived for decades on West 85th Street near Amsterdam Avenue.“Ross Falzone was walking to a Chelsea subway station when Rhamell Burke allegedly shoved him down the stairs, abruptly ending his life,” District Attorney Alvin Bragg said in announcing the indictment, calling it an unprovoked and terrifying act of violence against an older New Yorker. If convicted, Burke faces up to 25 years to life in prison.
Prosecutors say that on the night of May 7, Falzone was walking toward the 18th Street station at Seventh Avenue at around 9:30 p.m. when Burke, who had been walking behind him on the same block, came up from behind and shoved him with both hands down the stairs without a word. The two had never interacted. Falzone suffered a traumatic brain injury, a fractured spine and a fractured rib, and was pronounced dead at Bellevue Hospital just before 3 a.m. the next morning. He held a doctorate from Columbia University and spent his career teaching special education.
The case drew citywide attention not only for its randomness but for where Burke had been in the hours beforehand. As we reported in our original coverage, officers had taken Burke to Bellevue for a psychiatric evaluation around 3:30 p.m. that same afternoon after he was seen acting erratically outside the 17th Precinct on East 51st Street. He was discharged less than an hour later — roughly five hours before the attack.
Mayor Zohran Mamdani ordered NYC Health + Hospitals to investigate the evaluation and discharge and to review psychiatric protocols across the city’s public hospitals; Bellevue has said it expects the review to find its care was appropriate.
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Burke had been arrested four times since February on charges ranging from petit larceny to assault and had four open cases at the time of the attack, court records show. He has been held without bail since his arraignment in May.Falzone’s family has placed responsibility squarely on the city and state. “He wouldn’t hurt anybody,” his sister Donna told ABC7 in May. “He’s a bag of bones. He’s not even 100 pounds.”
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