This transit rider was attacked at a Toronto subway station in 2021. Now, he's telling his story

Jason Wang says he never saw who attacked him in a Toronto transit station more than a year ago.

Instead, he says he felt the impact – something slamming into his neck and shoulder, pushing him into a nearby wall.

“At first, I thought it was almost like an earthquake,” Wang told CTV News Toronto in an interview Monday.  

Wang said he immediately sought out help from transit staff, but was met with inaction. He said staff put pressure on him to immediately decide whether to press charges, and that when he expressed hesitation in making that decision on the spot, staff failed to support him further.

The next day, in October 2021, he says he called the transit agency to follow up, hoping to report the incident, and was told he would hear back within 15 days.

That was almost 17 months ago. He says he never heard back.

While the TTC says it can't confirm an agent ever ensured Wang would receive a response in 15 days, Wang says the commission should take responsibility and investigate instances of alleged assault on public transit property.

Wang never reported his incident to the police — he says he isn't looking for charges to be placed. Instead, he says he's sharing his story to underline what he has identified as a lack of communication and sufficient reporting mechanisms within the publicly funded system. 

THE ALLEGED ATTACK

On Oct. 23, 2021, Wang recalled being forced to exit a subway train at St. Clair Station due to a closure.

As he walked amongst the crowds, headed towards the shuttle buses offered as alternatives, he recalls suffering a blow to the neck and shoulder.

“All I could see was a fleeing man, I couldn't even see a face,” Wang said. “I just remember [they were carrying] a stuffed black garbage bag.”

Wang said he assumes this is what he was struck with.

As the crowds continued to move towards the shuttle buses, Wang said he was unable to break free and lost sight of his alleged attacker.

Seeking safety, he said he spotted the vibrant-coloured vest of a Toronto Transit Commission (TTC) employee.

“I told him that I was physically assaulted,” Wang said. “Then he told me that there was nothing he could do."

After Wang said he insisted on assistance, the TTC employee handed him off to a supervisor who echoed a similar line of questioning – “What do you want me to do? Do you want to call the police or not?”

Still in shock, Wang said he asked for a safe space to make a decision. He said he was told such a space could not be made available, and was once again pressed to decide whether to call Toronto police.

“Then he pointed me towards a dark corner with no lights and he asked me to recover there all by myself,” he said.

“At that point, I just did not feel safe in the station anymore,” he said.

A shuttle bus was pulling up and Wang said it felt like a welcome escape, so he said he got on.

AN ATTEMPT TO REPORT

Still feeling distraught, Wang took to social media, tagging several TTC accounts on Twitter and chronicled what had happened to him.

A TTC customer service agent responded, instructing him to call the transit agency and report the incident. The next day, when he did, Wang said he was met with a familiar question – “What do you want me to do?”

“She didn't give me a feeling that she wanted to do it,” Wang said about the employee on the other end of the line. Wang said he had to stop the employee from hanging up before he could obtain a case number or instructions on how to receive a response.

“Eventually [she] told me that it could take 15 days to respond – that was 17 months ago and I never heard back.”

TTC spokesperson Stuart Green told CTV News Toronto he could not confirm if a 15-day response timeframe was ever promised.

“The file we have does not indicate a follow up was requested,” Green said in a written statement.

“Fifteen days is usually the time we give to look into concerns internally. We don’t automatically follow up with customers unless they request it," Green said, adding that assault is a serious crime and should be reported to police.

The transit agency’s policy states their objective is to respond to customers seeking a response on an investigation within 15 business days. “If a reply was requested, the customer is re-contacted by telephone with the final response,” the policy reads.

“What we do know is that in the year and half since the incident there was no follow up by us or from the customer,” Green said.

However, Wang underlines that he was told he would be contacted by the TTC, and that the onus should not have been on him to follow-up.

“They've somehow put the blame on the victim,” he said.

CTV public safety analyst Chris Lewis said the TTC’s response doesn’t appear to prioritize the passenger.

“If you called a store and complained because you're buying something and the store doesn’t get back to you and they expect you to get back to them, that’s not good customer service,” Lewis said.

“It was an assault and these things tend to escalate so if the police did attend and investigate and found out who did it, that may well have taken somebody off the streets that would go on to push someone on the tracks,” he continued.

RECENT TRANSIT VIOLENCE

Violence on Toronto’s transit system has increased 60 per cent since 2019. Last week, head of the TTC, CEO Rick Leary, admitted people are scared to get onboard.

Most recently, a number of high-profile, and at times, seemingly random, attacks have captured the public’s attention. Last month, a teenage boy was fatally stabbed in what police called an unprovoked attack while sitting on a bench at Keele Station.

Andrea Magalhaes is overcome with emotion after seeing the bench at Keele Station, where where her 16-year-old son, Gabriel Magalhaes, was killed in a random attack, during a candlelight walk in Toronto on Thursday, March 30, 2023. THE CANADIAN PRESS/Tijana Martin

Earlier this year, three attempted pushings at Toronto's Bloor-Yonge station, a string of mugging and assaults, and a fatal stabbing at a west-end station prompted calls for national action.

In the wake of recent incidents, the TTC said it remains committed to working with police, the City of Toronto and union partners on employee and customer safety.

It has increased the presence of both its special constables and uniformed employees patrolling the system. In January, 80 Toronto police officers were deployed on the system, but the initiative was halted before the end of March, due to a lack of municipal funding for the overtime hours required.

“The TTC moves hundreds of millions of customers every year without incident, but we cannot and do not take that for granted,” spokesperson Stuart Green said in a statement issued to CTV News Toronto.

NOT A ‘SINGULAR’ STORY

Wang’s motivation in sharing his story, first penned in a first-person essay published in late March, was not to garner sympathy for himself, he says.

Instead, he said he hopes it can raise awareness and help build a collective vision for the city’s transit – one that centres the passenger experience.

“I hope we don't simply look at the short term security fixes that have been implemented and then cancelled,” Wang said.

He said he hoping for investments in social services such as housing affordability or health care – “a multidimensional” approach, as he called it.

“I do believe that we want our transit system to become better and I also believe that it has the capacity to become better, but that takes a strong political will to do it,” he said.

“This is a collective narrative about hope that our city could become safer and more welcoming.”