Homeless men have been repeatedly accused of attacking New Yorkers in the past 12 months, with alleged victims including a baby and an elderly woman and some cases resulting in murder charges.
In one case, a homeless man was accused of fatally pushing a woman in front of an oncoming subway train. Another faces accusations that he cut a man’s throat and killed him. Prosecutors say a third party raped a woman while she was jogging in the West Village. One woman said a homeless man killed her dog and, in a second encounter, beat her.
“This is becoming a daily story,” a Manhattan police officer told The New York Post in September. “A homeless man who roams the streets attacks innocent people. Only the names of the neighborhoods change.”
New York City overall crime increased 22.4% in 2022 compared to 2021, according to the New York City Police Department. Homicides fell 11% to 433, the fewest since 2019.
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Jessica Chrustic, of Brooklyn, said that in August, a homeless man in Prospect Park sprayed her with urine and then beat her and her dog, killing it. A few months later, the same man hit her with a mace.
In September, New York City police arrested another homeless man, Elkin Ortiz, for allegedly attacking five people on the Upper West Side over the course of about an hour. One victim suffered a shattered orbital bone and a fractured nose, Manhattan Assistant District Attorney Samantha Levitz said in court, according to the New York Post.
Ortiz had been released from state prison less than a month before the incident and was still on probation for an assault conviction in May 2021 when he carried out the alleged attacks, according to The New York Post.
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The same day Ortiz was arrested, another homeless man, Antonio Marquez, was charged with felony assault for attacking a 71-year-old woman on the Upper East Side, according to prosecutors. He was also accused of throwing a bottle that hit a 1-year-old girl moments later.
A goalie, Fernando Ortega, said he saw Márquez hit the woman.
New York authorities have charged homeless man Trevon Murphy with murder and attempted murder for an alleged July 2022 stabbing spree. (Barry Williams for NY Daily News via Getty Images)
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“She was walking towards him and he was walking towards her, and he just punched her in the face,” he told the Post. “She Then she took a bottle and threw it at a baby.”
“After that we all got together and corralled the guy until the police arrived,” he continued.
At least four homeless men have been charged with murder in 2022.
One, Martial Simon, was accused of fatally shoving an Upper West Side resident, Michelle Go, in front of an oncoming subway train in Manhattan in January of that year. Simon, a homeless man with a criminal record dating back decades, was found mentally unfit to stand trial.
Alvin Charles, another homeless man, was charged with murder in September for allegedly slitting a man’s throat on a subway train in Brooklyn. Carl Phanor, also homeless, faces charges of rape and attempted murder, among others, after he was accused of assaulting three different women over an eight-month period.
A homeless person partially blocks a subway escalator in New York City on September 10, 2022. (Robert Nickelsberg/Getty Images)
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And Waheed Foster was accused of punching Elizabeth Gomes as she was leaving a Queens subway stop in September 2022. Gomes lost vision in one eye as a result, according to prosecutors.
Foster faces charges of attempted murder and assault. The drifter was previously convicted of beating his grandmother to death when he was 14, The New York Post reported.
To see Chrustic’s firsthand account of violence at the hands of a homeless man, click here.
