Woman Pepper-Sprayed & Called “Karen” After Allegedly Telling Fare-Hoppers To Be “Civilized” On UWS, Assailant Arrested
Fraylee Liranzo, aged 26, pepper-sprayed a 68 year-old woman chiding a group of young girls for fare-hopping at the W. 66th St.-Lincoln Center subway station. She reportedly called her a “Karen” and told her to “mind her own business.”
| 22 Jul 2023 | 06:46
Fraylee Liranzo, aged 26, seen in a photo shortly before she pepper-sprayed a 68 year-old woman and called her a “Karen” for allegedly chiding fare-hoppers at the w. 66th St.-Lincoln Center subway station for not following “civilized rules.” She turned herself in on Tuesday, July 18 for the Monday, July 17 incident, and was charged with assault. (
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A 68 year-old woman was allegedly pepper-sprayed after scolding a group of women for fare-hopping at the 66th Street-Lincoln Center subway station on the Upper West Side. The assailant, Fraylee Liranzo, 26, was arrested Tuesday and charged with assault after turning herself into authorities.
The 68 year-old, whose identity hasn’t been released, reportedly did not not require hospitalization for her injuries, and alerted police of the incident after she arrived back home in Manhattan.
The police shared a photo showing Liranzo wearing a shirt with “Sold Out” printed on it, while holding a pepper-spray canister up to the camera. According to The Daily News, Liranzo allegedly told the woman she sprayed to stop being a “Karen” and “mind your own business.”
According to a 2020 BBC article explaining the increasingly popular usage of the term, “Karen” is often applied to middle-aged white women that are said to weaponize “their relative privilege against people of colour - for example, when making police complaints against black people for minor or even - in numerous cases - fictitious infringements.”
Neither the assailant nor the assailed knew the group of young women who had purportedly hopped fare.
In an interview with The New York Post, the woman who was pepper-sprayed expressed her personal belief that the term “Karen” itself is racist since it specifically references whiteness. The same outlet reported that she was frustrated with the fare-hoppers for not adhering to what she considered “civilized rules.”