A woman who was assaulted by a group of men outside a liquor store in Harlem before being beaten, bitten, spat on and robbed described the disturbing and unprovoked attack as the police to those responsible.
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Part of the attack was captured on a surveillance video.
The woman, who did not want to be identified, told NBC New York she went to work at a liquor store in West 128th Street and St. Louis at about 6 p.m. Nicholas Avenue stopped when the group of men offered to buy her a bottle of wine. She politely refused, and it was then that the situation escalated. They followed her, surrounded her and attacked her right outside the store.
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FOLLOWING
“I could not believe it, it was like an animal. That’s the only way I can put it, it was like an animal,” she said. The woman told News 4 the men punched her, kicked and spat on her, then one of the strangers started biting her face.
“I just remember how I screamed to my lungs, I just kept saying ‘He bites me! He bites me!’,” She recalls. “He bit through my eyebrow, and then he went on, he kept his mouth open to try to grab again.”
An outraged community, led by attorney Tony Herbert, issued a cash reward and demanded that someone who knew the men should come forward.
“What happened here is appalling,” Herbert said. “Assaulting a sister like this is an insult and a direct attack on every woman in our city.”
The attackers also took off with a $ 750 iPhone they stole from her, police said. As for the 31-year-old woman, doctors had to put the bite marks on her left eye. But the physical wounds will heal – the emotional ones are still raw.
“My mind is no longer the normal mind,” she said. “It was as if they wanted to demean me by spitting on me and kicking me.”
For her, there is only one thing that will bring a little peace: an arrest.
“It’s just sad, you can not even start your day, but think about your business … a polite decline can lead to something like that,” the woman said. “I’m a mother, I’m a daughter, I’m a girlfriend. It could be someone’s mother, sister, daughter who’s just in a store thinking about their business and buying their goods.”
Police are searching for the three unknown men. They released a surveillance video of the suspects in the store and footage outside showing them surrounding the woman. Grainy video later shows the attack in front of a white vehicle on the street, just outside the curb.
Anyone with information about the attack is asked to call Crime Stoppers at 1-800-577-TIPS.
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