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The evening rush was all but over on Tuesday as the man, a pizza maker heading home to Queens, walked, unsteadily, down the stairs onto the subway platform. A train, its doors already closed, was picking up speed as it pulled out.

In a few terrifying seconds, the train pulled the man into the tunnel just past the stop at Grand Central Station in the heart of Manhattan. He was unconscious when the police arrived and was pronounced dead at the scene by paramedics.

Exactly how the episode unfolded remained unclear on Wednesday. The authorities said that, contrary to earlier reports, neither the man’s coat nor the strap of a bag had gotten caught in the doors of the train.

The police had not released the man’s name on Wednesday afternoon. But he was identified as Vicente Alatorre by his brother, Edilberto, who had spoken to the medical examiner’s office. Edilberto was told that investigators found an I.D. issued by the Mexican consulate on the body, which identified the man as “Vicentito Fidelito Alatorre-Adan,” the same name on Mr. Alatorre’s birth certificate.