Dagean Wilson was walking into the Urban Juice Bar & Grill on Rutland Road in Brownsville on May 22 around 6 p.m. when a man approached her from behind.
That's when the suspect stabbed her in the back of her left shoulder. He fled the scene on foot.
"I don't know why anyone would do that," Wilson said. "I don't know them. I just was going out to the store and it was broad daylight outside."
"To have someone just walk up on the back of your child and stab them for no reason. The crazy thing is that we have no idea who this man is," Wilson's mother Loranda Hicks said.
Police have since identified the suspect as 20-year-old Osie Lewis and are asking for the public's help in locating him.
Lewis was last seen wearing a black t-shirt with a picture of a white lion on the back, grey sweatpants, and white sneakers.
EMS transported Wilson to Brookdale Hospital where she was treated for her injuries and released.
"It could have turned out really, really horrible," Hicks said. "I could have been, burying a daughter."
Doctors say the blade could have punctured Wilson's lung.
Wilson's family says the stabbing fits the increasingly familiar narrative in New York: A random, senseless and unprovoked attack by a total stranger.
And while the wound has largely healed, the attack has left its mark on the teen.
"She just doesn't know why," her sister Andrea Wilson said. "I mean, nobody knows. Nobody. Nobody knows why. She said it lingers in the back of her head. So now she looks over her shoulder every time we're outside. She never did that before."
Anyone with information in regard to this incident is asked to call the NYPD's Crime Stoppers Hotline at 1-800-577-TIPS (8477) or for Spanish, 1-888-57-PISTA (74782). The public can also submit their tips by logging onto the Crime Stoppers website at https://crimestoppers.nypdonline.org/, or on Twitter @NYPDTips.
All calls are strictly confidential.
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