Brooklyn man dies after closing A train doors trap his backpack at Utica Avenue

A man was killed Monday evening at the Utica Avenue station in Brooklyn when the doors of an A train shut on his backpack and the train pulled out with the bag still caught, police said.

Police said the man was stepping off a northbound train at about 5:48 p.m., in the middle of the evening rush. Witnesses said the doors closed on his bag just as the train started to move. The moving train pulled him along, police said, and he then dropped into the gap between two cars and onto the tracks.

Emergency crews rushed to the station, but the man was pronounced dead at the scene.

Police rule out a crime

Police said no criminality is suspected. Officials have not released his name and described him only as an adult. As of Tuesday morning, he still had not been identified.

There was no immediate comment from the MTA, which runs the subway, on Monday’s death.

Door snags have killed riders before

Deaths like Monday’s are uncommon, but they have happened before. In recent years, other subway riders have died after clothing or personal belongings were trapped in closing train doors.

Columbus Circle was the scene of one such death in 2022. During the evening rush that year, a 1 train’s doors caught a commuter by his clothing, and he was killed. The case before that came in 2016, when a bartender from Chelsea lost his life on a Manhattan-bound F train after its closing doors snagged what he was wearing and the train dragged him.