According to authorities, a fourth suspect has been apprehended in the alleged subway assault of a Fox News meteorologist over the weekend.
Police said Dante Hampton, 18, was detained and charged with third-degree assault, a misdemeanour, for his participation in the attack on weatherman Adam Klotz, 37, aboard a northbound 1 train early Saturday.
According to cops and police sources, Hampton, who reportedly assaulted Klotz with a closed fist, was handed a desk appearance citation to appear in Manhattan Criminal Court at a later date.
Three other suspects, two 15-year-olds and a 17-year-old, were apprehended and later released, police said.
When approached by The Post on Thursday, Klotz, who originally wrote about the assault on Instagram on Sunday, refused to comment on Hampton’s arrest and accusations.
On Monday night, he told Fox News’ Tucker Carlson that he was on his way home after watching the New York Giants playoff game at a pub after midnight on Saturday when he saw the youths attempting to set a “older gentleman’s” hair on fire with a joint.
“I was just sitting right there watching it and how can you not [intervene]?” he recalled.
“[I said], ‘Whoa, guys, you can’t do that.’ And then they just did not want to be told what they could or couldn’t do. So then suddenly the focus was on me.”
Klotz said that the gang assaulted him for many minutes and even followed him to another subway vehicle when he tried to get away.
“This whole group comes and gang-rushes me, jumps on me and just starts beating me and kicking me,” he said.
“I hear, ‘Put him to sleep, put him to sleep, put him to sleep, put him to sleep.’ They wanted to knock me out.”
In the wake of the attack, Klotz said he wanted “someone to be held responsible.”
“Where is the structural change? Put some cops down there. I want [Mayor] Eric Adams to do something more long-term, that this wouldn’t happen to someone else,” he lamented.
Officials had said that the three teenagers who had already been released with “juvenile reports” might face prosecution only if Klotz files a complaint with the city Department of Probation, which would then determine whether to transfer the issue to the Law Department.
The juvenile reports they were issued are provided to children who are accused of doing an act that would be considered an infraction if committed by an adult.
Hampton would have had to inflict “severe physical injury” on the victim in order to be charged with second degree assault, a crime.
»Police arrests a fourth suspect in the weekend subway assault of a Fox News meteorologist«