Several women have come ahead on social media sharing incidents during which they stated they were punched by means of males while they walking the streets of downtown Manhattan in extensive sunlight within the final month.
Multiple movies — which were uploaded to TikTok — have picked up traction within the final week, with women online sharing their protection considerations in feedback and answer movies. One girl stated she used to be assaulted walking house from magnificence. Another stated she used to be assaulted on her option to paintings. A 3rd girl stated she used to be attacked walking her canine. At least two of the women described suspects with equivalent traits.
New York police stated they made an arrest in one of the vital incidents and are investigating any other. While police wouldn’t verify that the incidents described within the TikTok movies are the ones they are investigating, they shared that they’re having a look into instances which are similar to accounts posted on social media.
Officials stated it’s unclear whether or not the 2 incidents they are investigating are hooked up.
The movies have circulated amid standard perceptions within the U.S. that crime is emerging, regardless of fresh FBI information that implies it lowered final yr.
Concerns over public protection have persevered to loom in New York City. A sequence of new high-profile crimes within the subway machine precipitated Gov. Kathy Hochul to ship National Guard contributors to one of the vital busiest stations.
In February, police reported a lower in shootings, murders and different crimes, like grand larceny, versus February of final yr. However, there used to be a three.6% uptick in legal attack, with 1,968 incidents reported to police final month. According to crime statistics for this past week, misdemeanor attack is up 10.3% from this time final yr, and it has long past up 15.7% up to now two years.
A police spokesperson declined to reply to any further questions in regards to the fresh attack incidents, together with whether or not they constitute an uptick in violent crime towards women within the town or whether or not the police division is taking any further measures to verify their protection.
Sarah Harvard, 30, used to be a few of the women who shared her revel in online after she noticed different women post movies.
Harvard, who posted Tuesday on X, stated she used to be walking to her comedy gig at the Lower East Side when she used to be punched behind the pinnacle close to the Delancey Street and Essex Street station the night of March 19.
“I was not on my phone. I was walking somewhere, and I got attacked from behind,” she instructed NBC News. “So it’s really violating that I didn’t see it coming and there was nothing I could’ve done, really, to prevent it from happening.”
She described experiencing a “spiky pain, throbbing feeling” in her head as she used to be walking house after the incident. The remainder of the evening, she stated, she had nausea, complications, dizziness and blurry imaginative and prescient.
Harvard stated she first of all didn’t cross to the police as a result of she idea that it used to be an remoted incident and that officers may brush it off. Since she discovered that extra women have come ahead online to say they’ve been assaulted, she stated, she plans to document a police document.
Since the assault, Harvard stated, she is suffering with feeling unsafe within the town she calls house.
“What’s really unbearable is that general never-ending feeling now of feeling unsafe and feeling constantly alert, constantly looking over my shoulder,” she stated. “This anxiety is manifesting physically, too. I slept last night for two hours; the night before, I slept for four hours. I’m having trouble breathing, and my chest is getting really tight.”
In their TikTok movies, women have echoed equivalent sentiments describing their interactions with their alleged assailants.
A lady stated she used to be walking out of the Times Square subway station on Saturday when a person got here as much as her and punched her within the head.
The girl stated she used to be ready to seize video of the person, as he used to be walking away. Police stated the 25-year-old girl used to be attacked on seventh Avenue and West 42 Street. Police publicized in a poster how the suspect used to be sought after for attack.
The girl stated on TikTok the “traumatic” revel in will stick to her the “rest of my life.”
“We are always cautious about walking at night, now we have to be cautious about walking in broad daylight,” she stated.
Mikayla Toninato, a Parsons model design scholar, additionally shared a TikTok video pronouncing she used to be punched within the face while leaving magnificence in Manhattan as she used to be having a look down at her telephone and texting.
“Out of nowhere this man just came up and hit me in the face,” she said in the clip, with a bruise visible under one of her eyes.
“He hit me right on my cheekbone. This doesn’t hurt as bad as the concussion does,” she stated in an interview aired Thursday on NBC’s “TODAY” show.
Dealing with the aftermath has also been emotionally taxing.
“It’s been truly truly arduous,” she said. “I believe it hits me in waves. Numerous crying as it’s been truly horrifying.”
Another woman said she was walking Monday when a man punched her in the face, causing a big lump to develop on her head.
“You guys, I was literally just walking and a man came up and punched me in the face,” she stated tearfully in a TikTok video. “Oh, my God, it hurts so bad. I can’t even talk.”
The woman didn’t say where exactly she was when she was assaulted. NBC News conducted a geolocation of where she was walking in the Chelsea neighborhood of Manhattan.
Police said an incident happened at 10:20 a.m. in the area of West 16th Street and 7th Avenue when “an unknown individual hit her in the head.”
“The victim fell to the ground and suffered injuries to the left side of her face. The victim was treated at a local medical facility,” police said in a report shared with NBC News.
She shared an update to TikTok in which she said she was looking at her phone when a man walking a dog assaulted her.
“There was so much room on the sidewalk, and, like, literally nobody was around, and I guess this man — I don’t know if he punched me or if he elbowed me. I literally passed out,” she said. “So I don’t really remember, but I think he just was really mad that my head was down.”
Skiboky Stora, 40, of Brooklyn, was arrested Wednesday on an assault charge in connection with the incident, police said.
Stora has sought public office in New York since 2021, public records show. He participated in a New York City mayoral debate in 2021. In 2022, he filed a handwritten petition to get on the ballot for New York governor. Last year, records show, Stora ran for the District 9 seat on the New York City Council.
Stora and the suspect wanted in the assault outside the Times Square subway station on Saturday, do not appear to be the same person.
Over a week before the Monday assault, in an area just over a mile south from where that victim was, another woman reported getting punched by a man who apologized before he hit her.
“I literally just got punched by some man on the sidewalk,” the lady stated in a TikTok video. “He goes ‘Sorry’ and then punches me in the head.”
Police say an incident happened at around 11:48 a.m. March 17 while a woman was walking her dog in the area of Kenmare and Mulberry streets.
“No injuries were reported as a result of this incident,” police said in a report.
In an replace posted to her TikTok account, the lady addressed questions she gained about what she used to be doing main as much as the attack.
“I wasn’t looking down at my phone,” she said. “I was just literally across the street from my building walking my dog to the dog park. I had seen the man. He was, like, slightly walking toward me, and I didn’t think anything of it. And then he says, ‘Sorry,’ and hits me and was immediately gone.”
She said a woman who witnessed the assault came over to help her.
Neither of the women who posted on TikTok responded to requests for comment. Several others who also posted videos didn’t immediately respond to requests for comment.
Many women online have since expressed that seeing the videos of other women sharing their alleged experiences have left them feeling uneasy.
“I have never felt so unsafe in the city than I do now,” reality TV personality Melinda Melrose, who was on the show “Too Hot to Handle,” said in a TikTok video. “This is another reason why I packed all my things out of my apartment, put them in storage and I’m moving. I do not got time to end up on the news and become someone’s victim.”