By Gus Saltonstall
A man was walking his dog in Central Park around midnight on Monday, when he was threatened with a knife, police said on Tuesday evening.
A 34-year-old man and his dog were walking in the park on East Drive near East 67th Street, when a man approached and flashed a knife, NYPD said.
The knife-wielding man then threatened to slash the victim, police said.
The man and his dog were able to run away, and there were no injuries reported, NYPD added.
Police released a photo of the suspect on Tuesday, who they describe as around 5 feet, 6 inches tall.
Anyone with information in regard to this incident is asked to call the NYPD’s Crime Stoppers Hotline at 1-800-577-TIPS (8477).
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NYC needs to put many more cops in parks.
At midnight? I don’t think that is the best use of the cops time.
It’s a horrible situation, but don’t put yourself in ‘harm’s way’.
Or people should just use their heads and exercise caution about where they wander after midnight.
You can call this victim blaming, but taking responsibility for what we do is something we learn as children.
What happened to the drones that were supposed to be surveilling Central Park? It seems that the majority of these incidents take place near the parks and subway stations. Is there a number we have to reach before anything will be done?
We need more police patrolling on the UWS and in the park. And we need some consequences and policies that protect all — including resident taxpayers.
“Resident taxpayers” should have better sense to be in the park after midnight, especially alone.
Or walk a pit bull
There is heavier police presence during the day when there is not much going on but once it gets dark they just sit in vans in well lit locations where, again, there is not much likely to happen. I thought it was a great idea when an NYPD van used to sit in the super dark yet busy spot next to the bocce space on the park extension of W 69th but again, they don’t do that anymore. Maybe we just need more lights in these plaves not cops?
This is not to diminish the essential wrongness of the knife-wielding criminal but — maybe don’t walk your dog in the park at midnight. I know that my out-of-state family members would not do that even in their little town.
Need to get to the root cause of all this crime. 🥱
Obviously we need higher-resolution cameras.
Why? The camera took the picture… Now what!??
All these people posting dumb comments about not walking in the park at night. Why not? It was perfectly safe 5 years ago, when I used to walk in the park regularly at night without feeling any sense of fear.
Bring back common sense policing practices that made this city great.
“[Central Park] was perfectly safe 5 years ago.”
Really? Tell it to Tricia Meili and others, who were infamously attacked in 1989. https://www.nytimes.com/1989/04/22/nyregion/jogger-s-attackers-terrorized-at-least-9-in-2-hours.html . (For those of you who don’t remember, see https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Central_Park_jogger_case )
Walk in the park at midnight if you want, but don’t think it’s safe to do so.
Let’s get real. It has NEVER been safe (at least for my 45 years living adjacent to the Central Park) to walk in the park alone after midnight. I don’t swim in the Hudson River either.