A Black woman was brutally beaten and stabbed by a white man yelling racist remarks.
Ann Marie Washington, 57, was hospitalized Sunday after undergoing surgery for a collapsed lung due to the attack, according to NBC4 New York.
Witnesses say the assault occurred as Washington stepped off the Church Avenue stop in Brooklyn on Friday evening. The assailant, a white man, reportedly punched her in the mouth and stabbed her in the chest while calling her a "Black b***h," bystanders report. Washington, a mother of two, is a native of Trinidad.
Following the assault, the attacker vanished on the Q train, according to the police. The white man, who appeared to be in his early 30s, stands at about 5 feet, 3 inches tall and seemed to have been wearing gray and black sweatpants and a black hooded sweatshirt.
The police were hesitant to initially label the attack a hate crime, which angered neighborhood residents who addressed the media in a news conference Sunday.
"If this [were] a white resident, a new gentrifier to this neighborhood, there would be swarms of cops here," remarked Imani Henry of Equality for Flatbush. "But when it is a Black person who is attacked by a white racist, there isn't anything."
The New York Police Department said its Hate Crimes Taskforce would further investigate. At the time of the ambush, police said they did not have all the details to identify a motive.
Witnesses say Washington didn't realize she had been stabbed until she returned home. Even then, she figured she had been scratched in the chest until she woke up the following morning, recalls bystander Kezia Bernard-Nau.
“Her daughter found her and was like we need to take you to hospital, like what is going on? They rushed her to the hospital, and that’s when she found out that she was indeed really hurt and her lung collapsed because of it,” Bernard-Nau said according to CBS New York.
Eyewitnesses say a video of the ambush was filmed, and there should be surveillance video of the suspect. However, police have not yet released anything.
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