In New York City, some women are warning each other to be careful.
They are sounding an alarm about a misogynist man who is out there hitting random people, especially women. But nobody knows who he is.
One of them, a comedian named Sarah Suzuki Harvard, was walking alone on Delancey Street in lower Manhattan on Tuesday March 19 around 8 in the evening when the guy punched her from behind. She turned around and looked, but the man was already running away.
After the incident, the 30-year-old resident of the Lower East Side, has been dealing with headaches, nausea, dizziness, blurred vision, anxiety, and post-traumatic stress.
Initially, she didn't report the attack to the police. However, after seeing viral videos of other women describing similar assaults, she felt encouraged to report her own incident.
“My sister was sending me these TikTok videos of these girls talking about how they’re getting punched in the face,” Harvard said, while talking to The Independent.
“My friend was like: ‘Don’t you feel a little bit better now that it’s not an isolated incident?’ No, I’m getting more scared now because it’s a repeated occurrence that could get escalated, that could happen to me again.”
Several similar assaults on women have recently caught public attention, with incidents occurring within days and miles of each other. The accounts of these assaults have spread widely on social media, especially after influencer Halley Kate shared with her 1.1 million TikTok followers that she was punched in the face by a man in Manhattan.
“You guys, I was literally just walking and a man came up and punched me in the face,” she said through tears, showing the welt that had begun to form on the side of her forehead. “Oh my god, it hurts so bad. I can’t even talk. Literally, I fell to the ground and now this giant goose egg is forming.”
Multiple other women in New York City were recently attacked on the streets. They were walking and looking at their phones when it happened.
One woman was punched in the face and she blacked out, while another got a bruise around her eye. One girl said a man hit her while walking his dog. Another girl got hit near her school.
It seems like the attacker might be targeting women who are distracted by their phones. They shared videos on an app called TikTok to warn others. They all told the police, but the attacker is still out there. They want everyone to be careful and not look at their phones while walking.
The attacker seems to target people who aren't paying attention. People online are talking about it and telling each other to stay safe.
It's scary, but sharing their stories might help others stay safe too.
The police are investigating and women are being warned to stay alert and aware of their surroundings.