After sharing their stories on TikTok, these women are beginning to suspect that the assailant is the same man
A number of young women in New York have reported being punched in the face while walking around the city (often in broad daylight), and after their sharing their stories publicly, are beginning to suspect that the culprit is the same man.
TikTok user Halley Kate (@halleykate) said in a video, on the verge of tears, “you guys, I was literally just walking and a man came up and punched me in the face, and now this giant goose-egg is forming.”
In a separate video, @mikayla described her experience: as she was leaving class, and while she was looking at her phone, a man walked up to her on the street and hit her in the face. “I’m actually in shock right now,” she said.
Almost the exact same thing happened to TikTok user Olivia Brand: a man approached her on the pavement, said “sorry” and then punched her in the head.
Speaking on TikTok with a visible black eye, Jill Burke shared an eerily similar account of being assaulted. “If you know me, you know this isn’t something I would typically publicly talk about but I think this is something women should be more aware of,” she said. On her way to work at around 10am, a man looked at her, pointed two fingers at her in a gun symbol and then slammed a heavy plastic bag “filled with God knows what” into her face, causing her to fall down in the street.
“I’m trying not to cry but I just realised I was part of a group of women that got punched. I have so many goosebumps because I’m so shook that this happened,” said Selena Pikanab on TikTok (@pikapikanab). Before work, she went to NoHo – an area in downtown Manhattan – to buy a water bottle as a birthday present for a friend. She claims that, while checking her GPS on her phone, a man approached her, said “excuse me”, and then punched her.
@pikapikanab Getting punched in NYC was not on my agenda today. This happened to me at around 1 pm and I had work immediately after. #fyp #fypage ♬ original sound - 🍉Selena Pikanab🍉
Posting on Instagram, stand-up comedian Sarah Suzuki Harvard – who was also punched in the back of the head by an unknown assailant – collected several of these TikToks together and suggested the attacks were the work of the same man. “It seems like they all got attacked in downtown Manhattan in the Lower East Side/ East Village/ Union Square area,” she wrote.
“I haven’t filed a police report because I thought it was an isolated incident and that the police wouldn’t do much, but now that it seems like a recurring incident, I’ll be filing a police report,” her post continued.
Stay safe out there!