A homeless career criminal has been arrested and charged with brutally assaulting a nurse after police said he was seen on video repeatedly throwing a victim down a flight of stairs at a light rail station in an unprovoked assault.
Alexander Jay, 40, was taken into custody earlier this month and charged with second-degree assault. As of Monday morning, he remained in jail on $150,000 bail.
According to court documents, just before noon on March 2, the 62-year-old nurse got off the tram at the Chinatown-International District station in Seattle and was walking up the stairs when Jay grabbed her and threw her back down.
The apparently random attack was captured on CCTV footage of the victim, wearing a red jacket, tumbling headfirst down the stairs and stopping on the landing, according to KTTH’s Jason Rantz.
A shocking video from the Chinatown-International District light rail station in Seattle on March 2 shows Alexander Jay, 40 (left), brutally assaulting a 62-year-old nurse (right).
The video shows the suspect grabbing the woman and throwing her head first down the stairs.
After the victim stops on the landing, Jay rushes down the stairs, grabs her a second time and throws her further down.
Before the woman can get to her feet and run away, the suspect approaches her a second time, grabs her again, and throws her down the stairs.
The suspect, later identified as Jay, races down the steps and tries to throw the victim off a third time, but she desperately clings to the railing and resists.
As the suspect and victim fight, two men who appear to be homeless walk up an escalator parallel to the stairs and witness the attack but do not intervene.
After punching and kicking the victim, the beast runs back up the stairs and leaves the station before rescuers arrive on the scene.
The 62-year-old victim, whose name has not been released, has a broken collarbone and three ribs. She was taken to Harborview Medical Center, where doctors performed an operation on her.
The woman was in the same carriage as Jay prior to the incident, but the two did not interact, police said.
Two men (left) walking up an escalator witness a nurse being brutally attacked but do not intervene.
The next day, police found Jay half a mile from the crime scene and arrested him, KIRO reported.
Police said Jay and his victim were in the same light rail car prior to the attack, but did not interact with each other.
The woman, however, got a good look at his face, with a distinctive cross tattoo on his left cheek, and later recognized him as the man who attacked her.
Jay is also under investigation in connection with a stab wound that occurred at a bus stop at the intersection of South 12th Avenue and South Jackson Street shortly after the nurse was attacked.
Jay, seen above, leaving the precinct, has a criminal record in Washington and California, including nearly two dozen convictions.
“The description of the stabbing suspect was similar to that of the assault suspect, and both descriptions included a cross tattoo on his left cheek,” the Seattle Police Department said in a press release.
Court documents show the 40-year-old has an extensive criminal record listing 22 convictions in Washington State and California, including burglary, theft, selling stolen property, drug possession, auto theft and multiple domestic violence charges. .
He was most recently convicted of burglary in 2021.
Jay is due back in court on March 24th.