A 26-year-old woman, Imani-Ciara Pizarro, was stabbed in the throat by a maniac at Grand Central Terminal on Christmas Eve. According to Pizarro, the attacker, 28-year-old Jason Sargeant, came up from behind and punched her, then repeatedly yelled “what’s your problem?” before lunging at her with a small knife.
Pizarro was Facetiming with her neighbor when she was attacked and blacked out after being punched in the back of the head. When she came to, she was bleeding from her neck and saw that witnesses around her had frozen and did not come to her aid. She claimed that there were no police in sight and had to call her neighbor to report the attack.
The suspect was eventually arrested and charged with several counts, including assault and reckless endangerment. Sargeant has three prior arrests for criminal mischief, fare beating, and assaulting a police officer.
Pizarro said that she feels unsafe and harassed, and is now considering finding a safer way to get to her job, which is converted into a migrant shelter. She also expressed frustration that there were no police present at the scene to help her.
The attack is the second stabbing at Grand Central Terminal in the past two years, and comes less than a week after a woman was set on fire on a late-night F-train in Coney Island, marking the ninth killing on the metro system this year.