Vic shoved at hospital
The NYPD is investigating what might be the city’s first coronavirus-related homicide — after a woman hit an elderly Brooklyn hospital patient in the head for violating social distancing, sources said Sunday.
Victim Janie Marshall, 86, died less than four hours after the tense confrontation with 32-year-old Cassandra Lundy in Bedford-Stuyvesant’s Woodhull Hospital, cops said.
Marshall, who was at the hospital for a bowel obstruction, innocently grabbed a metal stand in a hallway near a bed where Lundy, a seizure patient, was sitting around 2 p.m. Saturday, police sources said.
Lundy lashed out, complaining Marshall wasn’t following coronavirus social distancing guidelines, and allegedly slugged her in the head, knocking her to the ground, according to police sources.
Some of the confrontation was caught on video, though no one witnessed it. Hospital police issued Lundy a disorderly conduct summons after the attack and released her, sources said.
Marshall, who helped create Sunshine Community Garden on McKibbin St. and Graham Ave., near her Williamsburg home, died just before 5:40 p.m. Saturday.
“It’s sad,” said Dealice Fuller, who chairs Brooklyn’s Community Board 1. “Something like that happens and you’d like the world to know that somebody contributed something.”
Fuller said Marshall played a key role in establishing the community garden in 1991.
“She was able to get all the information and she came to me and she asked me to help get people to join the garden,” Fuller said. “We were basically one of the first gardens in the district.”
Police and prosecutors are waiting for an autopsy to determine Marshall’s cause of death. If the death is ruled a homicide caused by the attack hours earlier Lundy could face upgraded charges, law enforcement sources said.
Lundy, who lives in Bedford-Stuyvesant, has 17 prior arrests, on charges including drug possession, trespass, assault and strangulation, sources said.
Marshall’s friends were shocked by her death. They recalled fondly how hard she worked to keep her apartment beautiful.
“We would just meet in the hall and laugh and talk,” said neighbor Eartha Calloway, 87.
“It just goes to show, you never know,” Calloway added. “You could be walking down the hall and someone hits you in the hospital.”
After letting Lundy go with a summons, the hospital didn’t contact the NYPD until almost five hours after Marshall died, sources said.
In a statement, NYC Health and Hospitals, which runs Woodhull, said it was “saddened” by the death, adding: “We are committed to ensuring a safe, health-focused environment in these very demanding times so our heroic health care workers can continue to deliver the quality, compassionate care New Yorkers need more than ever. We are collaborating with the NYPD in their investigation.”
The agency did not respond to a question about why it took so long for them to call NYPD.