Woman randomly attacked with scissors on New York subway platform

Police are still looking for the suspect

A woman was hit in the head by an unknown person while she was waiting at the Central Park North subway station early Monday, authorities say (NBC)

A 49-year-old woman in New York City was hit in the head with a pair of scissors while she was waiting on a subway platform around 2.30am on Monday near the 110th Street and Lenox Avenue in Harlem, the New York Police Department (NYPD) said.

Officials said someone threw a pair of scissors at the woman, hitting her in the head. The unnamed woman was later taken to a hospital. She suffered a cut to the back of her head and is expected to recover.

The suspect reportedly ran off from the scene. Local reports said that the suspect didn’t say anything to the victim during the random act of violence in the transit system.

The victim got on an arriving train and rode it to the next stop, where she reported the attack to authorities, the NYPD said.

Initially, reports said that the suspect hit her with an unknown object but later it was known that it was a pair of scissors. The police are still looking for the suspect.

In September, NYPD arrested a man who was involved in a brutal assault inside a Queens subway station. It was around 5.15am on 20 September at the Howard Beach-JFK Airport station when a 33-year-old woman was approached by a man who tried to start a conversation and then followed her into the mezzanine.

Reports at the time said that when she ignored him, he dragged her across the floor of the mezzanine and slammed her into the wall and repeatedly pounded her with his fists and kicked her about the face and body.

Earlier this year, New York mayor Eric Adams announced a new subway safety plan following a spike in unprovoked attacks during transit. The “Subway Safety Plan” deploys 30 joint response teams reaching out to the homeless, with a focus on the A, E, 1, 3, N and R lines.

While still in the earliest days of the operation, the city saw a 30 per cent increase in transit crime during the first week of mobilisation.