VIDEO: Homeless Man in Queens Arrested for Allegedly Punching Woman, Threatening Priest

Amy Furr

A suspect was arrested Thursday after he allegedly threatened a priest and assaulted a woman outside a church in Flushing, Queens, last month.

Surveillance footage shows the moment when 36-year-old Chun Wang punches the 53-year-old woman in the back of the head as she walks through the doors of Saint Michael’s Church on 41st Avenue.

Father John Vesey said Wang regularly attended the church’s Sunday lunches for the homeless community and noted that the suspect was asked the day before the attack not to return unless he could be kind to others.

“He gets very, very angry and gets angry with our staff. One of the women — what we would call the administrator — she said we can’t serve you if you’re going to be like that, treating people,” the priest commented.

Police said the man was caught sleeping inside the church just before the incident occurred and was asked to leave.

“We were just beginning mass, and he was just being disruptive,” Vesey continued. “We said to him, ‘really, you can’t be here,’ and he said all sorts of things to me, threatening. Couple seconds later, he was just going wild again, and that’s when he hit the woman.”

The victim was reportedly telling the suspect not to sleep inside the church when he hit her. She was later taken to Booth Memorial Hospital in stable condition and is recovering from her injuries.

Thursday morning, the New York Police Department (NYPD) tweeted its thanks to residents for their help in locating the suspect:

Wang was charged with assault and harassment following his arrest.

On October 10, the NYPD apprehended an “emotionally disturbed” homeless man after he attacked a seven-year-old boy outside his home in Queens.

Police said the suspect, Laurance Gendreau, allegedly picked up the boy and slammed him down onto the pavement as the child and his brother stood on their driveway waiting for a pizza delivery.

“You heard that scream, you knew something serious was going on,” the boy’s grandfather, Naftali Portnoy, said at the time. “It’s a kid that was picked up and smashed to the ground. The child is intubated and the child is sedated.”

“We hope and we pray that God’s watching over him and he’ll be OK and that nothing like this happens to anyone,” he concluded.

Police said Gendreau underwent a psychiatric evaluation at Jamaica Hospital following the incident and faces charges of assault and harassment.

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