The Fox News meteorologist who was pummeled by a gang of rowdy teens on a Manhattan subway train says City Hall is blowing it by failing to protect Big Apple straphangers.
“I want someone to be held responsible,” weatherman Adam Klotz said on “Fox & Friends” on Monday. “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.”
Klotz, 37, was riding a No. 1 train home from a bar around 1:15 a.m. Sunday when he was jumped by a group of weed-smoking teenagers, who targeted him after he tried to intervene on behalf of an elderly man the crew was harassing.
“Sure, I could’ve taken a $75 cab ride to get home,” Klotz said on Fox News. “But most people can’t do that. I can’t do that every single day. We need these subways. We need a way to get around this city and yet this is what is happening.
“New Yorkers are getting around this way,” he said. “It just needs to be a safer way to do it.”
Klotz said the teens brutally beat him even as he tried to flee to another car on the train — and while other straphangers on the crowded train just looked on.
“There was about 25, 30 people on this train car,” Klotz told the Fox hosts. “There’s an older gentleman across from me and there’s a group of teens, one of them was lighting a joint. With that lighter, they put it in the guy’s hair and his hair went up like a matchbox.
“He’s knocking out flames and I’m like, ‘You can’t do that,'” he said.
Klotz said that’s when the teens turned on him.
“They were trying to knock me out,” he said. “And then once you’re unconscious and you’re getting punched like there’s no defense. So, I was just doing my absolute best to cover my head so I couldn’t get knocked out. And now my side is black and blue, my knee, I can hardly bend.
“But when it was happening, no one was doing anything,” he added. “But I mean like, look what happens when you step up for somebody. Like I tried to step up for somebody and this is what just happened to me. Like, why would anyone want to do this to themselves?”
After the attack, Klotz — who still had purple bruises on his eyes during his appearance on the morning TV show — said one straphanger did try to help and called the cops.
But that person left when the teens came back and started “verbally harassing” Klotz, the weatherman said.
The teens ran off the train at the 18th Street station, but three were nabbed by cops — and later released to their parents without charges, authorities said.
The young thugs — two of them are 15 and one is 17 — could only be charged if Klotz files a complaint with the city Department of Probation, which would then decide if it would refer the case to the Law Department, officials said Sunday.
They were given what are known as “juvenile reports” — a report for a youngster who allegedly commits an act that would constitute an offense if committed by an adult.
However, police said Monday that they’re now interviewing the elderly man who was allegedly accosted by the teens first — and could still lodge charges against the rowdy crew.
“The decision was to get all the information before we move forward,” NYPD Deputy Chief Kevin Maloney said. “The decision was made to release them to their parents and make efforts to identify the other victim, which we did.
“We’re talking to him now to see if there are appropriate charges,” Maloney said. “They could be issued appearance tickets to appear in family court.”
He said cops are also still looking for a fourth teen allegedly involved in the attacks.
Asked on “Fox & Friends” if he would pursue charges, Klotz was noncommittal.
“I want someone to be held responsible, but really what I want is some sort of change. I don’t want this to happen to somebody else, and I don’t think necessarily just these kids getting in trouble,” he said. “Like, where’s the structural things?
“I want Eric Adams to do something more long-term that this won’t happen to somebody else, more than me just getting some sort of revenge in the short term,” he said.
Asked if he had a message for his young attackers, Klotz said, “Just don’t throw it away.
“Like, they’re not going to get in trouble because they’re 15 and 16 and 17, but don’t do this,” he said. “You’ve got your whole lives. Don’t throw your lives away and do this again in a few more years. I mean, it’s not worth it. I’m not worth it. This is not worth it.”
He said he would be thrilled “if something could come from this.”
Asked about the attack on Klotz on Monday, Adams defended the city’s war on subway crime, but largely dodged the weatherman’s gripes.
“Our officers are out there,” the mayor said. “And so we must make sure people feel safe and as I say over and over again, the best way to do that is to have that visible presence of a police officer.”
He said that most subway system suspects are repeat offenders.
“We have a revolving door system,” he said. “We’re going to continue to do our job but we also must un-bottleneck our criminal justice system and get dangerous people off our streets.”
Klotz, meanwhile, called it “embarrassing” that his beatdown made the front page of The Post on Monday, holding up a copy of the newspaper on the air.
He declined to comment to The Post and referred questions to Fox News.
