The girl was in the food hall with her mother when the suspect punched her in the face.
A 9-year-old girl was punched in the face by a random man inside New York’s Grand Central Terminal in the midst of the sucker-punch epidemic.
A man was seen on surveillance video walking around the terminal. He approached the girl who was in the food hall with her mother and hit her.
Cameras captured the suspect fleeing the station after the attack that took place around noon on Saturday.
Later that day, police found 30-year-old Jean Carolos Zarzuela near a homeless shelter.
Nearly two weeks ago, Zarzuela was charged with breaking the nose of an unnamed 54-year-old woman near the same location and was promptly released without bail.
“It doesn’t make any sense that this guy who recently was released after being charged with randomly punching someone else and breaking that victim’s nose should be back in a public space where he can attack others, especially children,” Metropolitan Transportation Authorities communications director Tim Minton said. “The people responsible for the criminal justice system need to learn from this episode before more innocent people become victims.”
These unprovoked attacks are not only happening in New York.
Nurse Mary Klein, also 54, tells Inside Edition a random man punched her in the face out of nowhere as she was on a walk in Venice, California.
The accused homeless assailant hit Klein so hard that she had to have her jaw wired shut.
“I think he tried to kill me. He tried to choke me, and he tried to knock me out,” Klein says.
Klein says she’ll never feel safe again.
“I think we have a tremendous mental illness crisis with the homeless population,” Klein says. “We don’t realize that our families are not safe.”
Klein received at least eight fractures to her jaw, a laceration to the back of her head, multiple contusions on her face and neck, and lost several teeth, according to a GoFundMe account. The page has been set up to help Klein get facial and dental reconstructive surgery and buy her a new home security system.
