Man stabs tot in face
Shea rages as violent ex-con faces rap soon after release
A blade-wielding ex-con who attacked a Jewish family in lower Manhattan didn’t stop his frenzied rampage until he hurt the most vulnerable victim — purposely targeting a baby girl strapped in her stroller, Police Commissioner Dermot Shea said Friday.
“Stop and listen to this slowly: He slashes the mom, slashes the dad and then intentionally stabs a child, a 1-year-old girl in a stroller,” an outraged Shea said Friday on CNN. “Where’s the outrage? Something is clearly broken here. It’s a crisis.”
Shea’s words come as the accused stabber, Darryl Jones, 30, was ordered held without bail at an arraignment where he bristled at being returned to jail.
According to prosecutors, the Hasidic couple and their daughter were strolling along State St. near Battery Park around 5:50 p.m. Wednesday when Jones stormed up and attacked them with a sharp, long cylinder-like object.
Video reviewed by the Daily News shows Jones holding up an umbrella as he walks past the family. Then he turns and starts attacking the adults before targeting even the baby girl in her stroller, cutting her in the chin, cops said.
“While we were going to sit down in the park, he came up behind me and attacked me first,” the rattled mom, sporting a bandage over her lip to cover her stitches, told The News Thursday. “Then my husband, then he went for our baby.
“I feel horrified. This is such a horrible hate crime. We came here to visit in America,” she said. “There were more people in that park, but he came to attack us because we are Jewish.”
Jones was apprehended a short time later and charged with attempted murder, assault, attempted assault, weapon possession and drug possession after cops found the synthetic cannabinoid K-2 on him, officials said. His weapon was recovered in a nearby garbage can.
Although no anti-Semitic statements were heard, cops were investigating the assault as a possible hate crime, authorities said.
“In this case, the defendant — unprovoked — attacked a family of three, cut the upper lip of a woman, cut the forehead of a man, and punctured a baby 1-year-old child’s chin,” Manhattan Assistant District Attorney Gabrielle DeNaro said during Jones’ arraignment, adding the assault was captured on a nearby surveillance camera.
Lawyer Edward McGowan of the Neighborhood Defender Services said Jones was trying to rehabilitate himself, but still struggles with drug addiction. He also questioned the attempted murder charges against his client.
“There’s nothing in the complaint that sets forth facts that imply that Mr. Jones came ’dangerously close’ to killing anybody,” McGowan said.
Judge Jay Weiner ordered Jones held without bail.
“If somehow you’re released and you don’t come back to court — either because you refuse to come back to court or otherwise — then conditions may get even stricter,” the judge warned.
“It gets worse how?” Jones spat back before he was taken to a holding cell. “I’m going to jail, how does it get worse?”
Shea said the unprovoked attack and an incident Monday when a man assaulted a 65-year-old Filipino woman have a troubling theme.
“What’s the common denominator here?” Shea asked about Jones. “He was paroled last month.”
Shea said Jones had just been released after serving seven years in prison for an incident where “he almost killed somebody, threw them down the stairs” during an Aug. 14, 2011 robbery in the Morningside Heights building where he lived at the time.
His victim, 59, who asked that his name not be made public, was outraged at Jones’ release. “(The system) failed everybody,” he told the Daily News, adding he only heard about it from a neighborhood friend. “He was supposed to get 25 to life. He got seven years.”
Jones’ propensity for violence didn’t end after his arrest in that case, Shea said.
“While he was incarcerated, he broke a court officer’s wrist and attacked people,” Shea said. “He was re-sentenced in jail for other offenses.
“This is who we are putting back on the street and in a month he’s stabbing a 1-year-old child in a stroller. I can’t tell you how angry I am about this,” Shea said.
Jones has 12 previous arrests, seven of them sealed, cops said.
Brandon Elliot, 38 — arrested earlier this week for attacking a Filipino woman walking to church on W. 43rd St. in Manhattan — had been released from prison in November 2019 after serving 15 years for killing his mother, officials said.
“The police alone is not going to solve the problem,” Shea said. “There are always arrests prior to these tragic, tragic incidents.”
“If we have the time to write detailed legislation about marijuana, let’s spend some of that time to fix this broken system and protect people not just in New York City but across the country because this is a crisis,” he said.