Lawyer: Man charged in subway deaths was defending self

A criminal justice student charged with stabbing two MTA subway riders to death was defending himself after a group of passengers smashed a bottle into his head and grabbed him in a headlock, his lawyer said Friday.

Two others arrested weren't charged and have been released, prosecutors said.

Brenddy Garcia, 19, sobbed as he was arraigned on murder and other charges in a Manhattan court. He didn't enter a plea and was being held without bail. He is due back in court April 14.

The stabbings early Sunday stoked fears about safety on the subways that carry more than 5 million people on an average weekday - especially after it emerged that there were no security cameras at the Greenwich Village station where police said the killer fled.

Garcia and his friends were on the No. 2 train when Darnell Morel, Ricardo Williams and a group of their friends boarded at Times Square around 5 a.m. Sunday. Prosecutors said Garcia lashed out with a knife after members of the other group tossed or kicked a bag at him. Morel, 24, died after being stabbed in the liver; Williams, also 24, was killed by a wound to his heart, a court complaint stated. A third man was wounded.

Defense lawyer Pamela Roth said a member of the slain men's group provoked the confrontation. Garcia told the man "no one's looking for a problem," Roth said. She said members of the other group hit him in the head with a bottle, cutting his ear and neck, grabbed him in a headlock and pummeled him.

As for the 4,313 security cameras in the subway, about half don't work. The Metropolitan Transportation Authority said it is working to make all the cameras operable. Nine hundred more cameras will be working by June, it said. - AP