TERRIFYING PUMMEL VID
Attack on woman was just one of nine
Disturbing new video captures the brutal beating Monday of a 27year-old woman who was one of the alleged victims of a homeless man suspected in at least nine attacks on women in Brooklyn since August.
The footage shows a man alleged to be Khari Covington, 29, who is seen violently pummeling an employee at a Brooklyn smoke shop shortly before 5 p.m. Monday.
“I was very scared,” victim Tina Francisco, 27, told The Post on Wednesday. “I guess I put up a fight, but it didn’t feel like it at the time.
“I grabbed a pair of dull scissors,” she said. “That was the first thing I could find. And I tried to do something with it, but it didn’t really make a big difference.
“He just wanted to hurt me and feel powerful.”
Covington was arrested the next day and charged with eight counts of assault as a hate crime and one count of attempted robbery as a hate crime.
Police said he is accused of attacking seven women at transit stations — primarily the Morgan Avenue subway station — and two others above ground.
Covington has 21 prior arrests, including eight cases that are now sealed, sources said.
Benjamin Bates, a co-worker of Francisco’s at the Sunflower Glass Company Smoke Shop, said Covington had been hanging around the neighborhood for months.
“It’s painful to watch the video,” Bates said Wednesday. “This is a family business with only five employees and even though none of us are blood, we treat it like that.
“He’s been hanging around,” he said of Covington. “He lived in a homeless shelter down the street, and he had started flirting with the [female employees], being a little creepy with them over the months. We had no idea this would happen.”
Covington was awaiting arraignment in Brooklyn Criminal Court Wednesday night.