Millions of people visit Manhattan each year, and now one tourist is leaving with a terrifying story after getting stabbed at random while walking out of a gift shop.
Times Square’s 8th Avenue and 43rd Street are always busy with foot traffic and police, and the area is statistically quite safe. We captured the seemingly random attack on a tourist on tape on Saturday at 6 p.m., and the victim did nothing to provoke it.
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The footage shows a man sitting on a walker in front of the store. According to one employee, the man just purchased cigarettes.
“He seems regular, smoking a cigarette; when I notice him, the girl is coming from the gift shop,” Anwar Yahia explained. “He had a big knife.”
Yahia says he can’t comprehend what was going through the regular customer’s head when he did something so aggressive on such a crowded street out of nowhere.
“After he stabbed the lady, he sat down in the chair; nothing happened; everybody walked close to him; he didn’t do anything,” Yahia continued.
Perplexed, the tourists walk away. The hospital treated the stab victim for a chest wound, according to the police.
Police quickly arrested Cyril Destin, 61, and charged him with assault and criminal possession of a weapon.
“I was scared because he came to the store to buy cigarettes, and after that, they locked him up,” Yahia recalled.
Destin has experienced more than a dozen arrests in the past. He lives in a nearby facility that provides supportive housing for formerly homeless people.
Destin is due in court on Sunday night.
