Two men were fatally stabbed early Sunday morning in a brawl on a subway car in Lower Manhattan, and by the evening detectives were questioning two men in connection with the deaths, a law enforcement official said.
The official, who spoke on the condition of anonymity because he did not want to be identified discussing a continuing investigation, declined to identify the men being questioned or say how investigators had found them.
On Sunday night, the police identified the victims as Darnell Morel, 24, of Martense Street, Brooklyn, and Ricardo Williams, also 24, of Bergen Street in Brooklyn. Both had been stabbed multiple times in the torso, most likely with a knife, and both had arrest records, the law enforcement official said.
A third victim, a 23-year-old man, was stabbed in the arm and neck. He was listed in stable condition at St. Vincent’s Hospital Manhattan.
The stabbings occurred shortly before 5 a.m. on a southbound No. 2 train that was running on the local track, according to the police. Investigators determined that one group of people got on at 42nd Street and the other got on a few stops later.
A brawl erupted, and the stabbings are believed to have occurred after the 14th Street station, the police said. The assailants are believed to have fled at the next stop, Christopher Street.
The stop after Christopher Street was Houston Street. Around 5 a.m., officers responding at that station after an anonymous call found Mr. Morel and Mr. Williams in pools of blood. They were taken to St. Vincent’s and pronounced dead on arrival.
The wounded man, who was not identified, was also at the station.
No weapons were recovered there.
Near the Christopher Street station around noon on Sunday, detectives walked up and down the street questioning shop owners. An employee at a CVS pharmacy said that detectives had entered the pharmacy to view camera footage, but that they had not found anything useful.
The killings came two days after Mayor Michael R. Bloomberg expressed concern about a rise in homicides in the city this year.
Through Thursday, at least 103 murders have been recorded, compared with 86 over the same period last year.
The 2010 number is still 4.9 percent below the murder rate in the comparable period in 2008, and 35.3 percent below that in 2001.
This year’s rate is the third lowest since comparable reporting began 47 years ago, the police said. And reported crime on the subways is at a record low. In 1990, an average of 47.8 crimes a day were recorded in the subway system.
In 2001, the average was 10; last year, it was 5.6; and so far this year, the average is 5.3. Since 1990, the average daily number of riders has increased by about one million.