An unhinged man clobbered and cut a woman walking on Park Ave. on the Upper East Side in a harrowing caught-on-video assault — and investigators are trying to determine if the suspect committed a similar attack in Brooklyn, police said Saturday.
The victim, 37, was walking on Park Ave. near E. 81st St. about 6 a.m. on July 14 when the man attacked her without any provocation, cops said.
“He wanted to kill,” the victim told the Daily News about her attacker, asking her name not be used for fear of reprisal. “I’m very thankful my daughter still has a mom. I’m very thankful I’m still alive.”
The woman said she was on her way to get some blood tests before work when she was attacked.
The man — clad in orange shorts, white socks pulled up over his calves and brown Crocs — walked casually along the sidewalk as he approached the woman, video shows.
An unhinged man clobbered a 27-year-old woman passing him on an Upper East Side street during a harrowing unprovoked attack caught on video. (New York Daily News Handout)
As victim and suspect approached each other, they made eye contact but she quickly looked away, the victim said. But the suspect kept staring at her. Almost immediately, she felt she was in danger.
As the two passed each other, the suspect suddenly launched the haymaker, the video shows.
The attack was quick and silent, and the man said nothing to the woman when he threw the punch, cops said.
Just a second later, “I was gushing blood,” the woman said.
An unhinged man clobbered a 27-year-old woman passing him on an Upper East Side street during a harrowing unprovoked attack caught on video. The victim was walking down Park Ave. near E. 81st St. about 6 a.m. on July 14, 2022, when the man attacked her without any provocation. (NYPD / DCPI)
“I didn’t know from where, but I was losing a lot of blood,” she said. “At first, I thought he punched me. I just ran.”
The assailant also ran off. Moments later, a surveillance camera caught him calmly walking underneath construction scaffolding.
The woman suffered a deep cut to her head and was taken to a hospital. That’s when she was told that her attacker was armed.
“They told (me) it must have been some metal object,” she remembered EMTs informing her. “The gash was eight millimeters deep.”
Four staples were needed to close the wound. After the wound was closed, she was released from the hospital.
Two weeks later, the woman said, she remains in “horrible” pain and suffers from vertigo and nausea.
The woman grew up on the Upper East Side, and now lives in New Jersey.
Reports of subway violence since the pandemic led her to avoid riding the rails. But she said she figured she’d be safe walking on Park Ave. in her old neighborhood, one of the city’s most affluent areas.
“I walked this way many times before,” she said. “I know this neighborhood like the back of my hand.”
Since the attack, the woman — the mother of a 3-year-old daughter — has been scouring the news, wondering if the suspect had been captured.
Surveillance camera captures moment man is stabbed with screwdriver in Brooklyn, cops said. (NYPD)
Fears for her safety deepened on Friday when she read a news story about a food vendor being attacked in Brooklyn.
In that case, a man came up behind the vendor and jabbed him with a screwdriver in a wild overhand motion on Lafayette Ave. near Fulton St. in Fort Greene Wednesday afternoon, police said.
“One-hundred percent, it was him,” she said.
The attacker in the Brooklyn assault on Wednesday closely resembles the man who attacked the woman on July 14. As of Saturday, police had not connected the two incidents, but they are investigating the possibility they were related.
Police on Saturday released surveillance images from the July 14 attack in the hopes someone recognizes the suspect.
He’s described as Black with a large build, a dark Afro, and a full beard. He’s believed to be about 5-foot-9.
Anyone with information regarding this incident is urged to call NYPD Crime Stoppers at (800) 577-TIPS. All calls will be kept confidential.
Copyright © 2022, New York Daily News
Copyright © 2022, New York Daily News