A man suspected in the death of Ki Suk Han has confessed to his death, but it is the decision to publicize a picture moments before Han's death that has garnered national attention.
Han was at the 49th Street subway station of the N, R, and Q trains in Manhattan on Monday where he had an altercation with an unidentified man. The unidentified man then grabbed Han and dropped him onto the train tracks as the southbound Q train started to arrive into the station. Unfortunately, Han couldn't avoid the train's impact.
New York Police Department (NYPD) spokesman Paul Browne confirmed a man has been questioned in regards to the incident and has "made statements implicating himself in the incident."
According to WCBS, the suspect is 30-year-old Naeem Davis who was questioned at the Midtown North Precinct on Tuesday night. The CBS affiliate added Davis was found by detectives near the same train station where the incident occurred.
Although the death was unfortunate, it is the actions by a freelance photographer that has captured people's attention. Photographer R. Umar Abbasi first spoke to the New York Post that he used his camera's flash to alert the train conductor of Han on the tracks. The camera, meanwhile, was taking pictures of the event. The Post decided to publish a picture showing moments, seconds, before the Q train struck Han.
"I just started running, running, hoping that the [train] driver could see my flash," said Abbasi to the Post.
In an interview on Today, Abbasi stated he was at the station to originally cover a story about the homeless man a NYPD officer bought a pair of shoes for.
Abbasi confirmed that the Post approached him and paid him for the pictures.
"I was approached that there would be interest,'' Abbasi told Today anchors Matt Lauer and Savannah Guthrie. "I would call it licensing to use it. Selling a photograph of this nature sounds morbid. I licensed these photographs. (How the image was used) is not my decision. I don't control what image is used and how it is used and how it is presented."
He added, "It's not that I ran to The Post and said, 'Hey guys I have a photograph you might be interested in.'''
Abbasi noted that nobody made an effort to grab Han out of the subway tracks. He said if he could, he would have made an effort to save Han and didn't care about the photographs.
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