20-year-old man struck in head in Chelsea in latest random assault in New York City
CHELSEA, Manhattan (WABC) -- There have been at least four unrelated random attacks in New York City recently -- and police are taking a closer look at what is behind the assaults.
The latest incident includes a 20-year-old man that was hit over the head with an unknown object inside a plastic bag.
"I looked down the block and I see this guy holding his head, bleeding profusely like blood all over the place," said eyewitness Jason Toeroek.
The attack was captured on surveillance video. The victim was approached aggressively and whacked in the head walking up Seventh Avenue near 23rd Street in Chelsea, just before 11 a.m. on Monday.
"I asked him, 'are you okay?' He said, 'somebody just attacked me,'" Toeroek said.
The victim was taken to Bellevue Hospital with a laceration to his head.
The suspect ran away northbound on Seventh Avenue and was last seen wearing a black sweater with an American flag.
It comes after an active weekend of completely random, violent attacks, including an incident involving a 36-year-old tourist who was stabbed near Times Square.
The woman was stabbed by a man sitting in a seated walker on West 43rd Street on Saturday while she was walking out of a gift shop.
The husband of the victim says the Pennsylvania woman was chaperoning a field trip with kids. He says that she should be considered a "hero" for remaining in front of the children and coaching them to go backwards without turning around.
He says that after she noticed the blood through her shirt and sweatshirt, a bystander ran for the police.
Cyril Destin, 62, was quickly arrested and charged with assault and criminal possession of a weapon. Police say Destin is homeless, lives in a nearby shelter and has a lengthy criminal record. He's been arrested more than a dozen times, never for anything this violent, but has a history of mental illness.
"This man could have murdered my wife or worse one of the children she was chaperoning," said the victim's husband. "Now's the time to get him off the street so he doesn't hurt anyone else."
Destin is still at Bellevue Hospital, being evaluated. The victim's husband tells Eyewitness News that right now, she never wants to visit New York City again.
On Friday night, an 11-year-old girl was slashed in the back of the head in East Harlem.
And it was also reported this weekend that actor Steve Buscemi was punched in the face in a random attack in Manhattan.
The 66-year-old was walking on Third Avenue near 27th Street this past Wednesday when he was slugged.
Former NYPD Commissioner Robert Boyce said the big fear is that the problem exists in the suspects' heads, and that we can't see the attacks coming.
"Twenty-five years ago when Kendra Webdale was pushed onto the subway tracks that started Kendra's law," Boyce said.
Kendra's Law, enacted in 1999, is court-ordered mental health treatment to involuntarily commit those with severe psychiatric disorders with a history of violence. But an audit by the state comptroller identified significant delays and lapses in treatment.
In one case, a recipient was arrested for murder on the day a second patient meeting should have been scheduled, and in another case, a patient was sent to the hospital 33 times for suicidal thoughts, but the visits were not reported as required and the patient died by suicide.
"These things are going to continue until we have proper funding to get these people into some kind of psychiatric help," Boyce said.
But civil rights activists are firmly against Kendra's Law, saying no one should be forced into medical treatment without their consent.
Mayor Eric Adams has made it easier for the city to involuntarily hospitalize the mentally ill who may pose a danger to others or themselves, especially in the subway system, and has spoken extensively about the combination of mental health and repeat offenders driving crime and fear.
"If we don't get to front of it, we are going to be dealing with a severe public safety crisis that other cities are experiencing," he said in late March.
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