Dulce Pichardo needed her mouth wired shut after getting punched by a man on the streets of New York City.
A woman who was punched in the face in a random attack in New York has spoken out after the suspect who police say hit her was released from custody without bail.
Dulce Pichardo needed her mouth wired shut after getting punched by a man on the streets of New York City.
Pichardo spoke to Inside Edition through wired teeth.
“How come that could happen? Because he make a lot of damage to me,” Pichardo says.
The suspect, who has pled not guilty, reportedly has a history of prior arrests.
“I am 100% sure this could happen again with somebody else, maybe to me,” Pichardo says of the man's release.
Inside Edition brought together other victims of the sucker-punch epidemic plaguing New York City.
“It’s very frustrating. One of the first questions I have been asked by my friends, by acquaintances, like, ‘Oh, was it provoked,'” Allison Hager says. Hager says her attack was not provoked.
Anika Harje at first assumed her attack was a freak occurrence.
“It wasn’t until I started getting all these things on my TikTok and people were sending me things like, ‘Look, it’s happened to another girl and another girl and another,’ and I was like, this is a real issue,” Hartje says.
Singer and actress Collette Astle was attacked last year.
“He punched me on the side of the head,” Astle says.
She was so traumatized, she moved back to Utah.
“I suffered a mild concussion and then I had some ringing in my ear and that actually still lingers today occasionally,” Astle says.
A TikTok page keeping track of the New York punching attacks now lists 44 victims.
