Police Searching For Woman Accused Of Punching 2-Year-Old On Subway; 'When He Woke Up, He Was Shaking,' Mother Says
NEW YORK (CBSNewYork) -- A 2-year-old boy has fallen victim to violence on the subway. Police are now looking for the stranger who punched the little boy.
CBS2's Hazel Sanchez spoke with the child's mother who said she and her son are traumatized.
The 21-year-old mother of two asked CBS2 not to show her face. She's terrified the woman who attacked her and punched her son will come after them again.
"I'm scared. I don't even like taking the train no more. I don't feel safe," she said through tears.
On Feb. 20, the mother, holding her sleeping son, was riding the C train heading toward the 116th Street station in Harlem when a panhandling woman asked the man sitting next them for money.
"I said, 'Ma'am, can you please stay six feet away? Please back off,'" the mother told Sanchez.
As the woman begrudgingly walked away, she stepped on the mother's foot, turned around and mumbled.
"I held up my hand to try to protect my baby from her falling on my baby," the mother said. "She turned around and she just started punching my baby, and punching him and punching him."
"And I was just asking people, 'Can you all please get my baby! Please get him!' she explained. "And nobody tried to stop. They were just standing there."
Police arrived too late. The attacker ran off. The toddler was rushed to the hospital and released, but the trauma has set in.
"This morning, when he woke up, he was shaking. I don't know if that's part of the seizures that the doctor said he would have," the boy's mother said.
The attacker is described as a heavy-set woman in her 40s with a buzz cut and neck tattoo.
Police are urging anyone with information on the case to come forward.
This attack follows the arrest of a homeless man who confessed to stabbing four people on the A train line.
Police have since assigned 500 additional uniformed officers to patrol the subway system.
The mother said the officers' presence isn't being felt.
"You see everything on the train station. It's so mind blowing," she said. "Like, where is the police?"
The MTA has requested the NYPD add 1,000 more uniformed police officers to patrol subways and buses.