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Metro

WOMEN SUCKER-PUNCHED ON NYC STREETS REVEAL THEIR SHOCK, FEAR WITH AT LEAST ONE
ATTACKER STILL AT LARGE

By Jeanette Settembre and Jesse O’Neill

Published March 27, 2024, 6:58 p.m. ET

A series of young women have revealed they were sucker-punched at random on the
street in Manhattan in a worrying series of attacks — with at least one
perpetrator still at large.

Mikayla Toninato, 27, told The Post she was frozen in shock when she was punched
in the face by a man over six feet tall on the corner of 14th Street and Fifth
Avenue on Monday at 2 p.m. moments after she left her class at Parsons School of
Design.

“I didn’t see him coming at all. I screamed out of shock. He knocked my head
back so hard I just kind of like gasped and screamed,” she told The Post
Wednesday of sending a text to her friend at the time of the attack.

10
Mikayla Toninato, 27, from Brooklyn, was punched in the face Monday afternoon by
a man over six feet tall on the corner of 14th Street and Fifth Avenue. She went
to the emergency room Tuesday and was told she had a concussion. Courtesy of
Mikayla Toninato

“I was frozen with fear. I was pretty paralyzed and I just stood there trying to
figure out what happened,” Toninato, who moved to New York from Los Angeles in
August to pursue a career in fashion, told The Post.

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Toninato is one of a string of women who have been randomly punched in the face
by strangers while walking in New York and on their cell phones.

On Wednesday 40-year-old Brooklyn man, Skiboky Stora, was arrested and charged
with assault for allegedly punching influencer Halley Kate Mcgookin in the face
while she was walking along West 16th Street and Seventh Avenue on Monday.

But at least one other perpetrator — and possible more — are still on the loose.

10
Skikoby Stora, 40, was arrested and charged with assault over the assault of
TikToker Halley Kate Mcgookin, whose video prompted other women to tell their
stories. @skiboky_stora / Instagram
10
On Wednesday, the NYPD confirmed to The Post that 40-year-old Brooklyn man,
Skiboky Stora, was arrested and charged with assault for allegedly punching
influencer Halley Kate Mcgookin, pictured here, in the face while she was
walking along West 16th Street and Seventh Avenue on Monday. Halley Kate /
TikTok

Days earlier on Saturday, March 23, a 25-year-old woman reported she was slapped
in the forehead by an individual at West 42nd Street and Seventh Avenue, an NYPD
spokesperson told The Post.

No arrests have been made and the investigation is ongoing. The victim, who uses
a “Wanted” sign circulating for a man in a red jacket.

“I was literally just walking and a man came up and punched me in the face,”
Mcgookin, who has 1.1 million followers on TikTok, said in the video viewed more
than 40 million times, posted Monday after the attack at around 10:20 a.m. She
fell to the ground and blacked out.

Mcgookin, 23, who, like Toninato, explained she was looking at her phone during
the time of the accident, showed a bump on her forehead in the now-viral video
she said “hurt so bad.”

She was later treated at a medical facility for injuries. Her video led more
than a dozen women to come forward with reports on TikTok and Instagram.

10
“I was literally just walking and a man came up and punched me in the face,”
Mcgookin, who has 1.1 million followers on TikTok, said in the video posted
Monday and viewed more than 40 million times. Halley Kate / TikTok

> @halleykate
>
>
>
> ♬ original sound – halley

It’s unclear how many have reported the incidents to the police.

Comedian Sarah Suzuki Harvard said she was “punched in the back of my skull from
a random man on the street,” as she left Delancey Street-Essex Street subway
stop on the Lower East Side. She did not report the incident to police.

Toninato told the Post she walked to Union Square a block away to alert a police
officer who told her the random acts of violence may be stemming from a nearby
addiction center at 19 Union Square West and that there’s been an uptick in
random acts of violence in the neighborhood.

“I said I just got punched in the face like a block away. I was crying. I
instantly had a black eye,” she said.

10
@Malous228 shared she a “random man” punched her in the head on March 23 in
Times Square shared a video of the alleged perp in a red coat. “It was a
traumatic experience,” she says in the video. @malous228/ TikTok

10
@Malous228 shared a video of the alleged attacker. @malous228/ TikTok

“He basically said the two options are: we drive around and try to look for this
guy and he could arrest him, but I felt like that was going to be impossible and
I was so shook up.

“Then he said he could file a report but he’d have to call an ambulance to check
me out, but I said I can’t afford to pay for an ambulance. I said I don’t want
to do that.

“He [the cop] told me these random acts of violence happen every single day. He
was kind of unfazed by it,” Toninato told The Post.

The next day she went to the emergency room where she was told she had a
concussion from the blow. She also suffered a black eye.

10
On Saturday, March 23, a 25-year-old woman reported she was slapped in the
forehead by an individual at West 42nd Street and Seventh Avenue, a DCPI
Spokesperson told The Post, confirming that no arrests were made for that
incident and the investigation is ongoing with a “Wanted” sign circulating the a
man, pictured here, in a red jacket. @ malous228/ TikTok

10
Since then, I’ve seen several NYC women on TikTok reporting they’ve been punched
in the face” class=”wp-image-31446828″ />Another women revealed her ordeal
outside a subway stop on the Lower East Side. Harvard, a 29-year-old copywriter
and comedian, said she had not made a police report. Sarah Suzuki Harvard/
Instagram

Toninato posted a TikTok hours after her attack on Monday afternoon she said to
help raise awareness after she saw Mcgookin’s post. It got 11 million views, and
her follower count on the app where she typically posts about fashion went from
15,000 to 23,000.

Former “Real Housewives of New York” star Bethenny Frankel reportedly commented
“This is insane bc this happened to me a few months ago but I was embarrassed to
say,” she said in a comment that does no longer show up on the video. A rep for
Frankel declined to comment.

A law enforcement source told The Post TikTok is to blame.

“They want to complain to Tiktok, but not file police reports.”

Toninato told The Post late Wednesday she was on her way to file a police
report.

“For this man this was probably a two second occurrence that he doesn’t even
remember and for me this just derailed my entire life,” she told The Post.

“I’m falling behind in my classes. I can’t do my work because I can’t look at my
laptop. I can’t get paid. I can’t do my job and I have anxiety to leave my
house.”

10
Toninato, pictured in the TikTok she posted about getting punched in the face,
told The Post late Wednesday she was on her way to file a police report.
mikaylatonianato/TikTok

10
Former “Real Housewives of New York” star Bethenny Frankel posted on Toninato’s
Tiktok: “This is insane bc this happened to me a few months ago but I was
embarrassed to say.” Tiktok

The spate of random attacks is the latest wave of violent crime to hit New York.

Mcgookin was attacked on the same day as 54-year-old Jason Volz was pushed to
his death in front of a northbound 4 train at 125th Street station in East
Harlem, allegedly by an attacker with a history of violence and mental illness.

Stora, the alleged sucker-puncher, is a frequent candidate for elected office
and performing artist who records rap music under the name Designer Attitude.

What do you think? Post a comment.

His most recent election bid was for city council in District 9 in Harlem last
year. The seat was won by Democrat Yusef Salaam, who was falsely convicted of
raping the Central Park jogger along with four other black teens.

Mcgookin posted a clip on Tuesday in which she said she believed her attack was
an isolated incident and that TikTok’s algorithm had helped the other women’s
accounts go viral too.

“I am not here to argue that New York City can’t be really scary at times, but I
have lived here for six years, and I have not had anything even remotely similar
happen,” she said.

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