He Was Once the ‘Subway Ninja.’ He Would Like to Explain.

New York|He Was Once the ‘Subway Ninja.’ He Would Like to Explain.

The man wore a long-sleeve dark shirt and ball cap over his mirrored sunglasses. Strapped to his back was a long sword in a sheath. He quietly entered a subway car and stood near a pole, as still as a shadow.

Minutes later — chaos. A panhandler had provoked him, and the man punched him and pulled the sword from its sheath. Passengers screamed and fled the subway car at the next stop, Chambers Street in Lower Manhattan. The man with the sword, Selwyn Bernardez, struck the panhandler and was arrested and charged with assault.

In the tabloids, he was given a new name. The “Subway Ninja.”

It was 2022, and the city was emerging tentatively from the depths of the pandemic. Mr. Bernardez seemed like another dangerous menace in the crowded trains below ground, further rattling passengers already on guard. People like him instill fear, then get caught, and the police and city leaders promise more officers, more programs for the mentally ill.

They wind up in jail or institutionalized, often for the rest of their lives. Any questions about their actions go unanswered. They are rarely heard from again.

But the Subway Ninja? He would like to explain.

A winding path

The year 2022 had begun on a high note for Mr. Bernardez.

He had repaired his troubled relationship with his mother, Evelyn, and the two visited often near her home in the Bronx. Ms. Bernardez had lost custody of her six children when they were young. Five of the siblings were adopted by a family in North Carolina, but Selwyn stayed in New York, where he grew up in foster and group homes.