Grandfather Killed Trying to Break Up Subway Fight

As Richard Henderson rode a No. 3 train home to Brooklyn Sunday night, he tried to intervene in a fight on the subway car and ended up dead. The 45-year-old was fatally shot just three stops before he would have gotten off, the New York Times reports. "He got shot stepping into an altercation that he had nothing to do with," says his wife of almost two decades, noting her husband often stood up for people against bullying. "He died a hero. He died doing what he did—taking up for the weak." Bystanders say the fight Henderson was trying to break up was over loud music, ABC 7 reports.

After Henderson was shot in the back and shoulder, the Manhattan-bound train kept going, but eventually stopped—in the Crown Heights neighborhood where Henderson lived—as police responded to a 911 call about the shooting. He was pronounced dead at a nearby hospital. Police are seeking the gunman, and they say it's not yet clear whether the shooter was targeting Henderson or the passenger with whom he was originally involved in an altercation. Henderson, a father of three and grandfather of two, "always intervened, he always wanted peace," his brother tells the New York Post. (More New York City stories.)