CBS2 Exclusive: Man Speaks Out After Violent Lower East Side Attack
NEW YORK (CBSNewYork) -- A Manhattan father spoke out Sunday after surviving a terrifying attack on the Lower East Side.
Police said the attacker yelled racial slurs at the man before snatching him. CBS2's Reena Roy talked to the victim exclusively with the victim Sunday.
Tomas Jaimez had slashes all over his body after the attack, which followed a long restaurant shift that he worked this past Monday.
Jaimez, 37, said he was walking down the street around 2 a.m. Monday at Broome and Suffolk streets, when a man came up to him out of nowhere yelling racial slurs and threatening the worst.
"He said, 'I'm going to kill you,'" Jaimez said. "When he say that, he punched my chest and I fall."
The husband and father of two little girls said the suspect, of whom police released a sketch, pushed him down to the ground. The suspect then whipped out a knife and demanded money, police said.
"He have a knife and he started to slash my face," Jaimez said. "I looked at him and said: 'I don't have a wallet. I don't have money.'"
Jaimez explained he didn't have much on him, but the attacker did not give up. He stole Jaimez's phone before running off, and shouting more hate-filled words, sources confirmed the suspect said, "Get out of my country."
"I walked outside; looked outside for somebody to help me, but nobody there," Jaimez said.
Jaimez said no one was around to call for help, but he was able to walk to a nearby pharmacy to call 911. The suspect was described as a black male standing about 6 feet 1 inch tall and 40 to 45 years old, last seen wearing a black parka with a fur-lined hood.
Jaimez is now living in fear, barely able to sleep at night.
"Now I am scared," he said.
Police late Sunday were investigating the incident as a possible bias crime, and were asking anyone with information to come forward.
