Alleged slashers careers' cut short in NYC
New York, N.Y. --A man accused of slashing at least two New York City women in January is facing charges in Manhattan and the Bronx, and another man was arrested this week for cutting a woman on a city subway platform in Brooklyn.
According to CBS New York, Ras Alula Nagarit, 37, was charged Thursday with felony assault, attempted assault, menacing and possession of a weapon.
Police said Nagarit, due in court Friday, turned himself in and admitted that he walked up to a 29-year-old woman on a southbound No. 3 train in Brooklyn Tuesday night and cut her. He allegedly told her: "I will chop you up on this train," according to the station. Investigators said Nagarit then slashed the woman with a cloth-covered machete, leaving a two-inch gash on her hand.
Kari Bazemore was also indicted in the Bronx this week, after he first struck a woman on Nov. 4, at Fifth Avenue and 55th Street in Manhattan, according to complaints filed in criminal court. Bazemore allegedly hit a woman in the face with a hard object and when she turned around, her attacker was standing there smiling while holding a plastic bag with something inside. He then allegedly slashed a woman in the Mott Haven section of the Bronx on New Year's Day.
Nicole Pagliaro was walking near East 134th Street on first evening of 2o16 when Bazemore allegedly slashed her across her face with a sharp object, requiring multiple stitches.
A closed Facebook page post describing the incident said she was followed home and "When she got to the front door, he first said he wasn't going to hurt her, but then attacked her with a box cutter."
Bazemore, who remained at large, allegedly struck again in Manhattan within the week.
In the early morning of Jan. 6, 2016, Bazemore allegedly began walking beside a woman in Chelsea and then quickly reached toward her face and slashed her before dashing across the street. He allegedly left lacerations requiring stitches on her lower and upper lip, as well as to her nose.
Bazemore was arrested when a man walking in the vicinity of St. Patrick's Cathedral recognized the suspect from a surveillance video he'd seen on television, which was released the same day. Police recovered a box cutter from the man, who has a long criminal history, according to CBS New York.
The NYPD would not discuss whether the Chelsea slashing was the first for which there was surveillance footage or a physical description of the suspect and referred all questions about the timing of the arrest to Bronx and Manhattan DA's offices.
Random slashings in New York City have become a regular occurrence.
A man attacked a 71-year-old woman Monday morning on a D train. Another man was slashed Wednesday night on a No. 6 train subway platform in East Harlem, police said.
Back in December, a man was randomly slashed in the face at the A Train subway stop at Nostrand Avenue in Bedford-Stuyvesant; a woman was caught on video slashing two victims on the same train line several days later.
The incidents followed a string of similar random slashing attacks on the streets of Lower Manhattan, Midtown East, Chelsea and Whitestone, Queens.
"There is something very frightening about somebody coming up to to slash you," said Harriet Jackson of Riverdale.