NEW YORK — A man has been arrested for randomly attacking a young woman walking down a New York City street earlier this week, police said Wednesday.
The arrest comes after several videos went viral on social media showing women being suddenly hit by a stranger on a Manhattan sidewalk in recent weeks, though the NYPD would not say whether the arrest was related to any of those incidents .
The 40-year-old man was arrested Monday morning in connection with an attack on a 23-year-old woman in Manhattan’s Chelsea neighborhood, police said. Details about the suspect’s attorney were not immediately available, and his attorney in two ongoing cases in Manhattan did not immediately respond to an email message Wednesday.
The woman told police she was walking near West 16th Street and 7th Avenue when an unknown person struck her in the head and knocked her to the ground, injuring the left side of her face.
One of the videos that has racked up millions of views on social media in recent days shows a popular TikTok user at the same location Monday, describing being attacked as she walked along the sidewalk and looked at her phone.
That same day, another popular TikTok user, who described herself as a student at nearby Parsons School of Design, uploaded a video of herself being punched in the face after leaving class, also while looking at her phone while texted.
When asked if the suspect was being investigated for similar assaults, the NYPD said only that “the investigation remains ongoing.”
In one of the suspect’s previous cases, court records show he is accused of assaulting someone at the corner of West 17th Street and 8th Avenue on September 20, 2023, and another person on West 17th Street just over a month later on. In both cases, the victims took photos of their attacker, both of which police say showed the same suspect.
Records show he pleaded not guilty to all charges in both ongoing cases in Manhattan.