Assault in Greenwich Village

Just witnessed something kind of amazing, and not in a positive way.

Sitting at my dining room table, this afternoon, typing up a silly blog post (specifically this one), I suddenly heard a commotion from the street below. I got up and peered down from my five-story window to see a somewhat heavy-set, middle-aged guy (not unlike, say, myself) getting assaulted by a bigger dude in a maroon hooded sweatshirt in the middle of the street. “Help, help, police,” the middle-aged guy shouted, but next thing you know, he was down on his back, with maroon-hoodie guy absolutely whaling on him, punching him repeatedly and emphatically in the face. Within seconds however, he stopped… bolted back to the sidewalk, paused for a second, and then sprinted off to the east and out of sight, while middle-aged guy was left dazed and bloodied in the path of oncoming traffic.

I put my sneakers on and dashed downstairs. A registered nurse who’d witnessed the whole thing from the far side of the street was already helping the guy up and to the relative safety of the curb, while other good samaritans gathered to help however they could. Someone called 911. I joined in and relayed what I saw while we collectively waited for the police and ambulance to arrive.

Evidently, the maroon-hooded assailant just sprang out of the down-sloping driveway just to the east of my building and attacked. He didn’t take anything. The middle-aged guy’s phone and wallet were still on his person. One fast-thinking man across the street managed to capture an image of the maroon-hooded assailant in mid-flight, and even got a partial shot of the guy’s face, which is pretty remarkable.

A couple who said they were neighbors of the victim arrived, and the wife immediately took off to go look after this guy’s poor kids, who he’d evidently left at home alone while he popped to the store to get some groceries. He was completely dazed and quite possibly in shock, and his face was severely beaten — lots of swelling around his eye-socket and blood pouring out of his nostrils. None of us could determine whether maroon-hoodie guy had a motive, but middle-aged guy said he didn’t recognize him. What’s odd is that the attack just seemed so visceral and, well, personal.

I scrambled back to my building and briefly relayed what I learned to our super, who said he’d look at the security camera that is aimed at the driveway the maroon-guy purportedly sprang out of.

I rejoined the gaggle and relayed what I knew to the police, who’d finally arrived. And then that was pretty much that.

The frustrating part of this is that I’ll probably never find out the fruition of this story — why the attack happened, what the motivation was, whether they catch the assailant, etc.

But it’s left us a bit shaken up — to see a brazen  -- and seemingly random -- attack in broad daylight (just before 4pm) right in front of our home.

Be careful out there, my friends.