An 85-year-old woman was shoved face-first to the sidewalk and seriously injured in a random unprovoked attack near Union Square Park in Manhattan, the latest in a series of chilling assaults on older New Yorkers by strangers on NYC streets.
Police quickly arrested the 29-year-old student who allegedly attacked the elderly stranger at about 12:30 p,m, Monday after she’d just stepped off a bus and was heading home, likely after seeing an acupuncturist. The victim is in an induced coma and her family says even if she survives, she may never fully recover .
“Aside from being crushed that my mother is no longer going to be the person that I know, no matter what the outcome is, I’m really very sad about the state that New York City is in, that this would happen to someone,” the victim’s 59-year-old daughter told the Daily News.
“She is an incredible woman who loved the city and this is what the city gave back to her. It’s just so heartbreaking.”
The victim, who her family said loved getting out and around in the streets of New York, was near her home when she was shoved from behind near Union Square Park East and E. 16th St., police sources said. The suspect, Paris Valentine walked away without looking back or ever having said a word, authorities said.
“She would never provoke anyone or say anything ill-willed,” the daughter said of the victim. “She gave so much to people that were in need … She would buy breakfast for people on the street.”
Valentine, facing an assault charge, was was ordered held without bail after pleading not guilty at her arraignment in Manhattan Criminal Court on Tuesday.
Valentine is a full-time student with no history of violence, nor a criminal record, her attorney, Rosa Isabel Valiente, said during ehr arraignment. She said Valentine was carrying a school textbook and walking her dog through Union Square Park when the attack occurred, and that she comes from a stable home; her mother is a full-time employee of the city.
Her public offender said she was remorseful about the attack.
“She has expressed remorse to me and to the DA,” adding that her client was “very saddened to hear this and never imagined their interaction would lead to where we are today.”
“She feels really terrible,” the lawyer said. “She hopes [the victim] does recover as well as humanly possible.”
The attorney requested medical attention for her client, but made no mention of any mental health issues during her arraignment.
Valentine lives in Flatbush, Brooklyn, according to cops. She was previously arrested on March 9, 2025 and charged with menacing and harassment after she allegedly threatened someone with a Taser in Bedford-Stuyvesant, cops said. The disposition of that case was not immediately clear.
Following the attack, the victim was rushed to Bellevue Hospital with a fractured skull and an “open cranial wound” and underwent emergency surgery, cops said. She is currently in a medically induced coma, according to prosecutors, who said the attack was so brutal it caused the victim’s scalp to peel back.
“She’s not doing well. They had to do surgery to relieve the bleeding on the brain,” said the victim’s son-in-law, who wished to remain anonymous. “But it’s going to be a number of days before we know if there’s going to be any significant neurological defect.”
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The victim was near her home when the suspect, Paris Valentine, allegedly shoved her from behind near Union Square Park East and E. 16th St., police sources said.
Doctors have kept the victim sedated as she breathes on a ventilator, the 68-year-old son-in-law said.
The victim, who was widowed several years ago, is a proud New Yorker who loves the arts and regularly attended Broadway plays, the opera and ballet.
“It’s not like she presents herself as somebody who is frail … She’s a typical New Yorker, wearing funky clothes, a red hat … leading a great life,” the son said.
“I hope [the suspect] gets help. Or gets incarcerated. This should not happen to another person,” the daughter said.
The victim regularly traveled around the city by herself without fear.
“She loved the city. She wasn’t fearful at all,” the daughter said.
The victim sings in and fundraises for the Yiddish Philharmonic Chorus.
“It was very important to her,” her son-in-law said of the chorus. “She worked hard. She really enjoyed everything about it.”
She also taught classes on muisc at NYU through a program which gives senior citizens the chance teach subjects they have expertise in.
The victim once owned a business selling nuts and bolts until she retired to raise her two daughters and son in New Jersey. Once her children were grown, she returned to New York with her husband.
“She’s a beautiful person. She was always walking,” said the victim’s current doorman, who gave his name as Michael. “It’s a crazy world. It’s sad that it happened.”
Violent random attacks against older New Yorkers have shocked the city in recent years, including the shoving death of beloved Broadway singing coach Barbara Maier Gustern, 87, in Chelsea on March 10, 2022. Gustern, who tutored Blondie’s Debbie Harry and the cast of “Oklahoma!” was nearing the corner of W. 28th St. near Eighth Ave. when Lauren Pazienza of Astoria, Queens, walked by and shoved her to the ground.
Pazienza was charged with manslaughter and was sentenced to 8 and a half years in prison a year later.
Monday’s attack came a day after an 83-year-old Brooklyn woman was slashed in the neck on her way to church after politely greeting a homeless man who attacked her without warning. Betty Ellerbe was waiting for an Uber about 11:25 a.m. Sunday when her attacker rounded the corner of her Brownsville apartment building located near Glenmore and Christopher Aves.
“He’s always out there walking around and talking to himself,” Ellerbe told The News in an exclusive interview from her bedside at Brookdale Hospital. “He came around the corner and I said, ‘Hello.’”
Just last month, a homeless man who had just been released from Bellevue Hospital’s psychiatric ward the same day fatally shoved 76-year-old retired kindergarten teacher Ross Falzone down a flight of stairs at a Chelsea subway station in a random attack. Cops nabbed suspect Rhamell Burke, 32, the next day.
And about 11:30 a.m. March 8, 83-year-old Air Force veteran Richard Williams was waiting on the downtown platform for the F and Q trains at the Lexington Ave.-63rd St. station when he was shoved onto the tracks. Moments before, the assailant had pushed a 30-year-old man standing next to Williams onto the tracks as well without saying a word, cops said. Williams died of his injuries less than two weeks later.
Back in February, just two blocks from where Monday’s victim was attacked, an 88-year-old woman was shoved to the ground and robbed of her cane, cops said. The woman was shoved onto the pavement outside the Target store on Union Square East at E. 14th St.
With Roni Jacobson
