The recent spate of random attacks on women on New York City sidewalks is getting attention on the widely used social media platform, TikTok.
Comedian and influencer Sarah Suzuki Harvard, 30, said she was on her way to host a Lower East Side show earlier this month when an attacker came out of nowhere and struck her.
“I was thinking about the show, in my own headspace- bam, all of a sudden I was hit on the back of my head,” Harvard told the Daily News on Wednesday.
She recounts that she still went to host the show after the attack, and chose not to seek medical attention that night. Reportedly, she continued to have headaches, nausea, and muscle stiffness, but she says that the lasting effects from the incident are more psychological and emotional.
The violence that has been occurring in the subways, and the attacks on Harvard and others who have shared their experiences on TikTok, have led the state to send in National Guard Troops and extra law enforcement into subway stations.
Though Harvard stated that their presence is not making her feel any more secure.
“This happened right outside the subway,” she said. “All they’re doing is catching people hopping the subway.”
Accounts given by the women who experienced these assaults describe various assailants, but one arrest was made after a 40-year-old Brooklyn man was caught on Wednesday for a recent assault on a woman in Chelsea, according to police.
Skiboky Stora is charged with attacking a 23-year-old woman as she was walking near W. 16th St. and Seventh Ave around 10:30 a.m. on Monday. The woman fell to the ground after Stora struck her, causing injuries to the left side of her face, as reported by authorities.
Reportedly, the woman struck by Stora was influencer Hailey Kate Mcgookin, who posted to TikTok on Tuesday, filming herself walking down the street in distress with a lump on the left side of her forehead.
“My head was down and I was looking at my phone, just sending an email, but there was so much room on the sidewalk,” she said in a later video she posted explaining the incident. “Literally there was nobody around, and this man–I don’t know if he punched me or if he elbowed me, because I passed out.”
Stora has also been charged with assaulting or harassing three other people in the same area of Manhattan since September, according to criminal complaints.
