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City on Razor’s Edge as Spate of Stabbings Continue Unabated

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After a series of slashing incidents on New York City subways, the “Guardian Angels” are making their return to the rails

New Yorkers remained on edge late last week after three more slashing attacks took place within less than three days.

As was reported by local media outlets, three suspects were still on the loose.

According to a CBS News report, Bobby Barbot, 25, was left with 137 stitches on his face when he was attacked at the Greenwich Village restaurant that he worked in. Barbot had asked a rowdy teen to leave the Silver Spurs restaurant on LaGuardia Place last Thursday evening.

Nicole Fontanez who is Barbot’s girlfriend said her boyfriend just asked the teen to leave the premises in a nice way as he was bothering customers and asking for money for a bogus basketball league. She said the teen grew increasingly hostile and promised to return to the restaurant. Police have corroborated that the unruly teens appeared moments after ousted from the eating establishment and slashed  Barbot in the vestibule.

Fontanez said, “He didn’t expect the guy to, you know, just slice him. It just happened very quickly.”

And just blocks away last Thursday afternoon, as was reported by CBS News, another such stabbing took place. This time, the scene was in SoHo at Lafayette and Prince Streets in front of Supreme, a popular skateboard and clothing store.

A 21-year old victim was slashed as a long line of people waited to get inside the trendy store to shop. Police said that the victim had just finished shopping in the store when an altercation of sorts broke out. It could possibly have emanated from an armed robbery or as a result of an acrimonious quarrel about the victim cutting the line to get into the store, according to the CBS News report.

Devin Harris, a witness to the crime scene said: “It was like some controversy down here, and next thing, you see him walking down here and he has blood all over his face, and you can see that from the corner of his nose to almost his ear that his face was slashed open.”

The CBS report also said that yet another person was slashed on the very same day. A 33-year-old victim was walking along West 88th Street near Columbus Avenue when a male suspect pressed a sharp object to his back and demanded the contents of his pockets. The suspect then stabbed the victim in the upper back and ran off with his Kindle and headphones.

Earlier in the week, a livery cab driver was slashed on Tuesday morning after arguing with a passenger.

Since mid-December there have been 21 slashing attacks in New York City. On the morning of January 15th, Jaime Carcana was attacked outside of her Lower East Side apartment building by a man she believes to be homeless.

“To this day I’m in fear if he’s released and he comes back here,” she told media sources.

The suspect in that attack, Tony Quinones is currently under arrest and is due to receive a psychiatric evaluation.  He is due back in court on March 2.

CBS2 reported that subsequent to her attack, Carcana started a victim’s support Facebook page, with an online petition demanding tougher laws to protect the public from known mentally ill offenders.

Kari Bazemore was arrested for slashing two women, and has what cops call a known history of “mental illness.” NYPD Chief of Detectives Robert Boyce said Francis Salud, who allegedly slashed two people in separate attacks, has “a psychiatric history.” And prosecutors said Damon Knowles, arrested for slashing a 71-year-old woman, has a “history of domestic violence.”

“When it comes to anyone who has a mental health problem — that we know about — and also history of violence, we are tracking those individuals,” Mayor DeBlasio said. “In the past, that was not done. Too many people had a mental problem that was documented, and a violence problem that was documented, and somehow left on the streets without treatment or a law-enforcement follow up.”

Ralph DePalma

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