Dreadlocked joyrider, 18, who took MTA train on one-stop spin is a repeat transit offender: NYPD

The dreadlocked joyrider who allegedly took a Queens MTA train on a one-stop spin last week is an 18-year-old repeat transit offender who racked up a dozen arrests this year – most of them on the rails, police said. 

Justine Randall-Pizarro allegedly commandeered the locked N train just after 4 a.m. June 17 at the Broadway station in Astoria before driving it to the 36th Avenue stop, police said. 

Pizarro – with her hair styled in reddish-orange dreads, wearing a black hat and black Crocs – entered the train parked in the station’s lay-up track through the conductor’s cab before the illicit jaunt, according to prosecutors and law enforcement sources. 

Investigators believe Pizarro – who fled the scene after the pre-dawn stunt – used a key to get the train running, the sources said. 

When detectives questioned Pizarro after her Tuesday arrest, she admitted to hijacking the train while videochatting with a pal and said she had the keys to access it, according to prosecutors.  

“I mean, I’m near Astoria. Bet,” she told an investigator, according to a complaint filed in Queens Criminal Court. “I went to Broadway, and behold – there was a lay-up train there. Still on FaceTime with my homeboy, so I drove it while I was on FaceTime with him.”

“And, I don’t know, we was just fooling around, turning up on FaceTime like while I was driving it,” the teen mischief-maker continued. “And I just drove it to 36th Avenue, got off.”

“I mean I don’t do the stealing myself, the people steal the keys for me,” she explained. “Usually – and I guess they steal them for themselves. But usually, yeah, they do steal them from workers.” 

NYPD Chief of Detectives Joseph Kenny said that Pizarro had been arrested 12 times in 2025 – most “related to transit incidents, whether it be burglary, reckless endangerment, train surfing or larceny from transit property.”

“This person is basically a transit recidivist who keeps breaking into trains,” the chief added. “When she breaks into them, she moves them, she steals items – train keys, things of that nature.”

Back on June 23 in the Bronx, Pizarro allegedly entered a female conductor’s cabin when a No. 5 train was stopped at the last station, Gun Hill Road, and allegedly stole her personal bag, prosecutors said. 

Prosecutors had requested that Pizarro be held on $20,000 bail or $60,000 bond, but a judge released her on her own recognizance.

On June 1, she allegedly got behind the controls of another train and took it for an early-morning spin at Van Siclen Avenue in Brooklyn, prosecutors said. 

Prosecutors asked for $25,000 cash bail or $50,000 bond, but Judge Masatera Marubashi cut her loose on supervision. 

And on May 26 on board an R train at 86th Street and 4th Avenue in Bay Ridge, Pizarro allegedly unleashed pepper spray in an MTA worker’s face, according to the criminal complaint. 

The DA’s office asked for her to be held on $20,000 cash or $40,000 bond, but she was also granted supervised release in that case. 

In Sunset Park, Brooklyn on April 21, she allegedly stole a backpack holding multiple items including MTA keys, an MTA radio and an MTA flashlight from the operator’s cabin of an R train at 59th Street and 4th Avenue.

On May 15, she allegedly stole a backpack holding keys and an MTA escape mask from a motorman’s cabin inside a D train at 86th Street and Bay Parkway, prosecutors said.

Both cases are not eligible for bail by state law, the Brooklyn DA’s Office said. 

In the April case, prosecutors asked for supervised release, but Judge Philip Tisne released her on her own recognizance. 

In the second case, prosecutors were able to ask for bail because of her previous open case – so they requested $2,000 cash or $4,000 bond.

But Judge Jevet Johnson granted Pizarro supervised release.

All four of the Brooklyn cases will be consolidated into one going forward, a DA’s office spokeswoman said.