A good Samaritan said he talked tough when a drunkard threatened him with a box cutter on a Manhattan subway train – telling the creep “you’re leaving the train right now.”
Jose Ceron, 50, had stepped in when the visibly drunk stranger menaced a group of women on the No. 1 train at around 2 p.m. Saturday, setting off the suspect who allegedly said “I cut you now,” he told The Post.
Diego Morales, 37 – who has 16 prior busts – had been shouting at the woman and pulled one of them by the hair, Ceron said.
“I said, ‘Don’t do that. You don’t need to do that,’’” Ceron said of their tense exchange in Spanish. “And then I sat back down.
“He stood up, pulled out a box cutter and pulled the blade all the way out and held it to my face and said, ‘I’ll cut you. I’ll cut you right now.’
“I said, ‘That’s fine you can cut me now. That’s fine, but you’re leaving the train right now,’” Ceron said on Tuesday.
He had noticed Morales acting “belligerent and being a nuisance to himself” on the platform at the 13th Street-City College station before they got on the train, he said.
“I didn’t put much mind to it,” he said. “Then I got on the train and he was sitting in front of me and there was a group of girls on his left side and he was shouting something and then all of the sudden he goes and grabs the girl’s hair.”
After the confrontation, Ceron said he took action to get the visibly drunk suspect off the train.
“So I told people to move away from the door,” he said. “The train pulled into the station and I pulled him out and he fell straight on his face. I held him down. It took about a minute and police came.”
Morales was cuffed at the 103rd Street station and charged with menacing and criminal possession of a weapon, cops said. He was also hospitalized for a cut on his face after he hit his face on the floor during the clash, law enforcement sources said.
Ceron said the suspect had “a cheap bottle of bourbon” with him.
“He clearly wasn’t aware of himself. He was drunk and drinking and he had an alcohol bottle on himself,” Ceron said. “Then he put his hands on people and he got himself into trouble.”
The serial lawbreaker had previous raps for criminal possession of a weapon, menacing a police officer and criminal trespass, sources said.
In his last arrest, from July 7 on the Upper West Side, he is accused of swinging a box cutter in the direction of a victim he claimed was taking a photo of him, according to the sources.
Back in November 2022, Morales had been allegedly harassing people on the street before turning his attention to one man who told him to back off and get away from him, the sources said.
But instead of complying, Morales whipped out a knife and scraped the ground with it, in an attempt to intimidate the victim, the sources said.
He was also arrested in 2019 for allegedly attempting to strike a police officer with a metal wrench after the cop booted him from a Manhattan subway station for disorderly behavior, according to the sources.
In 2018, he was nabbed for grand larceny from an Upper West Side store, the sources said.
And in 2017, he allegedly snatched a phone out of a woman’s hand when he became jealous that she was talking to her friends and planning to hang out, according to the sources.
He then allegedly grabbed the scarf around her neck and choked her with it, the sources said.
He was also arrested in 2016 for criminal possession of a knife, according to the sources.
The latest subway clash hasn’t left Ceron scared of the transit system, he said.
“ I’ve been riding the subways for years,” he said. “I’ve lived in New York City all my life. I’m fifty years old. Nothing really surprises me.”
