On Saturday, a purse snatcher punched a 67-year-old woman in the head before he knocked her down the stairs of a subway station in Manhattan.
The New York Post reported that the man attacked the woman just before 7:00 a.m. this past Tuesday. The attack took place at the 42nd Street-Port Authority Bus Terminal station, according to the New York Police Department.
The NYPD said that she “sustained minor injuries from the fall.”
The violent thief absconded with the woman’s personal cellphone, roughly $150 in cash, and credit cards that were being held in the woman’s purse, police said.
The NYPD released surveillance footage of a suspect who appears to have something stuffed under his hooded sweatshirt as he walks down the street and out of the surveillance camera’s view.
This past February, New York City’s new Mayor, Eric Adams, committed to cracking down on violent crime in the subways by removing the city’s homeless residents who ride “the same lines all night” in the city’s sprawling metro system.
The mayor previously referred to the city’s homeless population as a “cancerous sore” and said that the city would begin to deploy more police and mental health workers throughout its transit network to prevent violent crimes from being carried out in the subway and subway stations as well as to remove transient homeless populations.
Adams said, “No more just doing whatever you want. Those days are over. Swipe your MetroCard, ride the system, get off at your destination. That’s what this administration is saying.”
He continued, “People tell me about their fear of using the system, and we’re going to ensure that fear is not New York’s reality.”
In mid-February, Kevin Douglas, a 40-year-old man, was arrested and charged with second-degree robbery, third-degree robbery, and second-degree assault after viciously attacking a Thai woman in a subway station before proceeding to sexually assault her.
However, violent crime remains a very real threat in many places in New York City besides the subway system.
This past winter, a 4-year-old boy was assaulted by a grown man in Times Square at 3:20 p.m. in the afternoon. And in mid-March, the Museum of Modern Art in Midtown Manhattan was evacuated after a man stabbed two employees.
According to a report from WNBC-TV, a regional NBC affilate providing coverage to Manhattan, violent crime is on the rise in New York City. Rape was reported to be up 27 percent, felony assault by 12 percent, robbery up by 33 percent, and burglary up by six percent.