on ‘gun attack’ after years of mayhem VILLAGE 'MENACE' IN A CELL “He needs sustained help, and every agency is failing him,” said Rosso. “If he doesn’t get that help, he’s either going to kill someone, or going to kill himself.”
A wild man known as Ice Pick Nick who has been terrorizing the East Village for years has finally been arrested and jailed.
Just before 6:30 p.m. Thursday, neighborhood tormentor Nicholas Babilonia Jr. menaced a person on Avenue C with what appeared to be a firearm, before throwing the victim’s bicycle, according to criminal courts records.
The unhinged vagrant, who boasts a rap sheet 37 arrests long, then grabbed a metal pipe and swung at his target, narrowly missing him, the complaint said.
He was charged with attempted assault and menacing, and held on $20,000 bail, records show.
But the fact that Babilonia has managed to repeatedly assault and harass people along the block for years illustrates just how broken the city’s revolving-door system of dealing with the violent mentally ill is, according to outraged experts and locals.
“The system is just broken, they can’t decide what to do with him,” retired NYPD detective and John Jay College adjunct professor Michael Alcazar told The Post.
‘Dropping the ball’
“If he’s violent and emotionally disturbed . . . they should just keep him in the hospital,” he said. “Somebody is dropping the ball.”
Residents cried that for years, Babilonia, who camps out on Avenue C near his childhood home, avoided jail despite cops being repeatedly called .
“Clearly they do not understand the urgency of a homeless man who’s threatening to kill people,” said 65-year-old Garrett Rosso, who claimed Babilonia tried to stab him with an ice pick in 2021.
Rosso said Babilonia attacked him again on May 1, as he left Tompkins Square Park with his 12-week-old German shepherd. The serial attacker sprinted toward him while screaming, “I’ll kill you and your dog,” then violently grabbed him, he claimed.
He was taken by cops to Bellevue. He was out three days later and hunkered down two doors from Rosso’s building.
‘No one can control him’
Babilonia’s terror has extended to his own family members, some of whom installed facial recognition security to prevent him from entering their buildings.
“I don’t know why the city doesn’t have help for these people and take them out of the street,” Nicholas Babilonia Sr. said of his son. “I can’t control him — no one can control him.”
Resident Chris Ryan (inset) claims he saw Babilonia a week later kicking over garbage cans and a Revel scooter on Avenue C and began recording — only to have the loon chase him into a CTown and kick him in the shins.
Despite the video evidence, police called to the scene said they were going to send Babilonia “away for evaluation” — and his assailant was back out on Avenue C the next day, said Ryan, 54.
Last week, on May 4, Babilonia brandished a knife at customers seated in the outdoor dining shed at Royale, but fled by the time cops arrived, according to the restaurant’s owner.
‘System is failing us’
After spotting him outside the next morning, cops again were called to Royale, but did not arrest Babilonia, said the owner, who requested anonymity for safety concerns.
“Anyone who thinks they’re being empathetic or charitable by letting this guy rot out on the street, provoking the next violent encounter, has to examine their own perspectives,” said Ryan, who now carries Mace and a knife for protection. “It’s pretty obvious the system is failing us all, Nick included.”
Despite Babilonia clearly needing mental health treatment, it’s unlikely he will enter a program through the courts, warned Lance Fletcher, a criminal defense attorney and former prosecutor.
“Often the defendant is not on board or disagrees that he needs mental health treatment,” and their agreement to participate is required, he said.
“If the defendant disagrees, then he’s presumed innocent and the prosecutor has to prove charges against him . . . and penalties are jail or probation, but not mental health treatment.”
The NYPD did not respond to a request for comment on Babilonia.