A panhandler punched a 2-year-old boy in the face on a Manhattan subway train on Saturday, and the toddler’s mom said no one on the crowded train came to her aid.
The New York Post said the boy was sitting on his mother’s lap Saturday afternoon when a female panhandler came through, asking passengers for money.
The 20-year-old mother told the Post said she asked the woman to “please stay 6 feet away.”
Then, “she stepped on my foot,” the woman said, “and I pushed her off my foot to protect the baby. She turned and started punching the baby multiple times. She didn’t even hit me.”
The toddler was taken by ambulance to a hospital, where he was treated and released for minor injuries to his face and ear.
Sources previously told the Post that the suspect was wildly throwing punches, striking the 2-year-old, and that a witness told police she pulled the suspect off the mother and child.
“Nobody tried to help me,” the mother told The Post. “I yelled, ‘Someone help me, take the baby!’ No one did nothing to help.”
The suspect, described as a heavy set woman in her 40s with a neck tattoo and a buzz cut, left the train when it reached the next station. She was last seen wearing a gray, hooded sweatshirt, washed out jeans, boots, and white face mask, according to sources.
“No one tried to stop her” when she fled the train, the mother said. She said there were “a lot of people on the train. Every seat was occupied.”
Her son was traumatized by the incident, the mom said, and now “he won’t let me touch him by the face.”
The mother, who asked to remain anonymous because she was afraid the attacker might try to find her, said the woman “looked evil.”
The New York Police Department said they were still looking for the suspect Sunday evening.
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[Featured image: Pixabay]