Injured in jerk’s sick ‘tag’ game

Cops want this game to be over — and quickly.

An unhinged man dragged a heavy metal barrier across a NoHo street, then clubbed an unsuspecting 26-year-old woman with it as part of what he apparently thought of as a bizarre game, police sources said.

“Why did you do that?” Jaclyn Doherty asked the stranger after he struck her in the back with the barrier about 11:50 a.m. on Jan. 20 near Bleecker and Elizabeth Sts. in NoHo

“Tag, you’re it!” the stranger replied and walked off. Doherty suffered a few cuts and bruises but did not require medical treatment.

“I was just in shock,” Doherty told the Daily News on Tuesday. “I don’t expect to be hit with a bike rack on a Sunday morning.”

What she thought was a bike rack was actually a gate known as a French barrier used to pen in crowds at public events.

Doherty and a friend were leaving a boxing class on Bleecker St. when she saw the suspect “crossing the street with this metal thing.”

“I thought he was maybe saving a parking spot,” she recalled. “He didn’t look crazy or anything.” A moment later, the suspect flung the barrier in their direction. Her pal managed to dodge it. Doherty wasn’t so lucky.

“I was just in shock,” she said, adding that what happened next creeped her out even more. “He said, ‘Tag, you’re it,’ and kind of ran off.”

“It seemed like he wanted us to follow him,” she remembered, shrugging off her experience to life in the big city. “”It’s New York City, people do weird things.”

Cops released surveillance video Tuesday of the suspect in the hope that someone recognizes him. “They didn’t know each other, but for some reason he chose to hit her,” a police source said.

The suspect is described as black, about 20, 5-feet-5 and 140 pounds. He was wearing a black track suit with white stripes, plus a gray hoodie, gray Champion sweatpants and black sneakers, cops said.

Anyone with information is asked to call (800) 577-TIPS.