The New York Police Department is asking for help from the public to identify a thug who walked up to a woman in East Harlem and slashed her in the face in an unprovoked attack.
Officials report that a 42-year-old woman who is wheelchair-bound was attacked in front of a storefront on East 125th Street and Third Avenue just after 3 a.m. on Monday.
Hospital emergency room workers say the woman needed 50 stitches to close the wound.
The NYPD says the woman described her attacker as a black man between 18 and 25 years of age. He was wearing a black, V-necked shirt, a black baseball cap, black shorts with a white stripe down the leg, and white sneakers.
Police are asking anyone with information to call Crime Stoppers at (800) 577 TIPS.
This year, New York has seen a huge rise in the number of unprovoked slashings, mostly of women.
Just to name a few recent incidents, an Orthodox Jewish man visiting from Israel was slashed at the Bleeker subway station early in April. In January, a 71-year-old woman was attacked and slashed in the face as she tried to exit a northbound D train.
City officials are stumped by the jump in slashing attacks this year. Attacks are up more than 20 percent over last year, the NYPD reports.
Some have worried that each new slashing begets the next. As every new incident is reported, others get the idea to perpetrate copycat crimes.
By the end of March, officials had reported that 23 random slashings had occurred in New York in a five-month period.
Follow Warner Todd Huston on Twitter @warnerthuston or email the author at igcolonel@hotmail.com.
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