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Crime

NYC Homeless man punches elderly woman, hits baby with bottle 

“Then he picked up a bottle and threw it at a little baby,” said the father

September 16, 2022 4:40am

Updated: September 16, 2022 11:09am

A homeless man punched a 71-year-old woman and hit a 1-year-old in the head with a bottle while going on a rampage on the Upper East Side on Wednesday. 

At around 10:50 a.m. the suspect walked up to a 71-year-old cancer survivor on Third Avenue and East 78 Street and punched her, said a witness. The homeless man then started chasing another man while yelling racial slurs but failed to catch up to him. 

“I was talking with my friend and we saw the guy across the avenue arguing with another guy,” said doorman Fernando Ortega. “They ran straight down and we didn’t pay attention until he punched the old lady and she fell. She was walking toward him and he was walking toward her, and he just punched her in the face.

“Then he picked up a bottle and threw it at a little baby,” Ortega said. “After that, we all got together and cornered the guy until the police came.”

“We crossed Third Avenue and all of a sudden a bottle gets thrown at my 1-year-old,” said Robert Fitch, the father of the victim told The New York Post about the incident. 

“I heard it hit her head,” Fitch said. “It was a water bottle or soda bottle. My wife was pushing the stroller, so I handed her off to my wife. One of the doormen and I confronted the guy and were like, ‘What’s your deal?’ He put up his dukes up and tried to fight me.”

Several other doormen and good Samaritans came to his aid and surrounded the homeless man until the police arrived and handcuffed him. 

The suspect, identified as Antonio Marquez, 53, was charged with felony assault after his attack on Third Avenue.