Bands of teenagers have been jabbing women passers-by with sharp objects in a series of racially motivated attacks, police say.
All but one of 28 women jabbed between Oct. 21 and Oct. 27 on the city's diverse Upper West Side were white, and the attackers were black teenagers or young women.None of the victims has been seriously hurt, and police have minimized fears of infection with AIDS, hepatitis or other diseases.
"I would doubt if it was a hypo needle," said Capt. Maurice Collins. "These are very quick jabs, for somebody to be injecting anybody with a hypo needle would take time.
"It could be any kind of a sharp object, it could be a needle, it could be a brooch pin, it could be a compass point, something that's sharp enough to prick the skin. . . . The wounds are basically shallow," Collins said.
Collins, who heads the department's Bias Incident squad, said, "The victims are selected, it appears that they're selected on the fact that they're white."
Most of the women were walking alone on the street in the evening and "were approached usually from behind. They felt a pricking as the black female teenagers passed them, they observed laughing and giggling," Collins said.
No remarks have been made during most of the attacks. However, in one of the assaults, a teenager cursed her victim, and in another case, a teenager was heard to say, "We're going to cut your hair off," the captain said.