UWSer Arrested In Manhattan Hammer Attack Of Asian Man: Police

Upper West Side NY

10 March, 2022

9:56 AM

Description

UPPER WEST SIDE, NY — An Upper West Side resident has been arrested in connection to a brutal hammer attack that took place Tuesday night in a Manhattan train station, police said. Christian Jeffers, 48, was arrested Wednesday night for striking an Asian man in the head with a hammer on the 14th Street 1, 2, 3 train platform around 9:15 p.m. on Tuesday after a fight broke out after the two accidentally bumped into each other, police said. The hammer blow left the 29-year-old man bloodied and hospitalized, police said. The Upper West Sider has been charged with assault as a hate crime, aggravated harassment as a hate crime, menacing as a hate crime, and criminal possession of a weapon, police said. In the arrest report, police detailed that Jeffers is an Upper West Side resident. On Tuesday, police had not yet confirmed that the attack would be considered a hate crime, but the new charges confirm it. The attack occurred as New York City faces what has been dubbed a "Second Pandemic" in anti-Asian hate crime. "We are grateful for the outstanding police work by the NYPD who were able to locate and arrest the person who attacked one of our riders within 24 of the incident," MTA Chair Janno Lieber said in a statement Wednesday night. "We will always stand up for our customers and their safety, and we expect this perpetrator of a hate crime will be prosecuted to the fullest extent of the law."