A man randomly attacked an NYU student in Lower Manhattan on Monday while on her way to class, which surveillance video reportedly captured.
Amelia Lewis, 20, said the attack occurred before 9:30 a.m. on Monday morning as she walked down Broadway when a man suddenly and violently slapped her from behind before throwing her to the ground with no warning or provocation.
“As I’m walking, like with my headphones on listening to music, I feel something slap me so hard, like literally on my ass,” Lewis said in a tearful TikTok post. “And I was like, ‘Oh my God, oh that hurts so bad!’ I thought it was like one of my friends. I was gonna turn around and be like, ‘Oh, that hurt so bad, why did you do that?’”
“But when I turned around, I saw this old white guy. And like right when I turned around, he grabs my fucking hair like this and, like, yanks me and, like, threw me to the ground. My headphones went fucking flying,” Lewis continued. “And I was like on the ground, and I saw him just bolt away down Waverly. And I was like, ‘Holy shit? What the fuck just happened?’”
Surveillance video corroborated her horrific account.
According to the New York Post, police later “arrested and charged serial creep James Rizzo, a 45-year-old homeless man who has a history of assaulting unsuspecting young women, with persistent sexual abuse, forcible touching and assault charges Tuesday evening.”
“Rizzo has 16 prior busts, including for sexual abuse and forcible touching and even a 1997 murder rap. He was released from state prison in September after being sentenced to two years behind bars on a persistent sexual abuse conviction, online correction records show,” it added.
Lewis said in a post on X that she feels “enraged that things like this are able to happen in this city, and we really need to do something about it because this is unacceptable.”
“This just shows that you really need to reflect on who you’re voting for and supporting right now, because New York needs help and we’re just not getting the help we need, and this is crazy,” she said, describing her attacker as a “tall white male with tall brunette hair and a long brunette beard.”
An NYU spokesperson condemned the attack, calling it “deeply disturbed.”
“We take this incident very seriously; we are offering support to the student, and NYU’s Campus Safety Department is working with the police in investigating the incident,” the spokesperson said.
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