A Brooklyn, New York, man accused of sucker-punching a 71-year-old woman allegedly told the cops, “Yes, that’s me,” when they showed him video of the attack, prosecutors said Wednesday.
“Yes that’s me. Yes, you can say that’s me,” Jaquan Whittle, 27, allegedly said of the video that prosecutors say shows him sucker-punching 71-year-old Joan Baptiste while she walked along New York Avenue on September 19, the New York Daily News reported.
Baptiste was on her way home from her job at a daycare center when she fell unconscious and broke her jaw. Following the attack, medics took Baptiste to Kings County Hospital where she received medical treatment.
She told the Daily News she was unaware she had been attacked until she woke up in the hospital.
“I was surprised. It’s bizarre, definitely,” Baptiste told the Daily News Tuesday. “Nobody with a good mind, nobody with a family, would do such a thing.”
Whittle’s lawyer, Marissa Sherman of the Brooklyn Defenders Services, says the video is not enough evidence to label him as the suspect.
“It seems pretty blurry,” Sherman said at Whittle’s arraignment in Brooklyn Criminal Court. “Right now it seems the only identification is some tip pursuant to an investigation.”
The judge set Whittle’s bail at $100,000. He is due back in court on Monday. CBS New York reported that Whittle was free on bail for another crime at the time of the alleged unprovoked attack.
Whittle faces a felony charge of assault against a person over the age of 65.
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