A troubled vagrant randomly stabbed two teenage girls enjoying a
Christmas morning meal with their parents at a Grand Central
Terminal restaurant — after ranting that he wanted “all white people
dead,” authorities said.
The girls, 14- and 16-year-olds visiting from South America, were
attacked at Tartinery in the Grand Central Dining Concourse around
11:25 a.m. Monday and suffered non-life-threatening stab wounds,
police and sources said.
“I want all the white people dead,” the suspect, Steven Hutcherson,
36, allegedly yelled, according to police sources. “I want to sit
next to the crackers.”
He then allegedly lunged at the unsuspecting teens, plunging a knife
into the 16-year-old’s back, nicking her lungs, and stabbing the
younger girl in the thigh, police and a law enforcement source said.
Hutcherson — who cops and sources said has a slew of prior arrests
and a history of mental health issues — had allegedly popped up at
the restaurant and said he wanted a table but wasn’t going to order
anything, staffers told The Post.
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When he was still refused, he allegedly became irate and pointed to
the victims’ family, arguing that they weren’t eating anything at
the time — then went off, grabbed a knife and attacked the girls,
the staffers said.
Nearby transit police officers rushed over in less than a minute and
Hutcherson dropped the knife as soon as they arrived, the MTA said.
“Everyone was just running,” a veteran MTA employee who witnessed
the incident said Tuesday, calling the scene “chaotic.”
Hutcherson was booked on felony counts of attempted murder, assault,
criminal possession of a weapon and misdemeanor endangering the
welfare of a child, according to the MTA.
He was awaiting arraignment in Manhattan Criminal Court on Tuesday.
FDNY EMS took the girls, who sources said were staying at a nearby
Midtown hotel, to Bellevue Hospital to be treated for their
injuries.
A hotel worker said the teens were released from the hospital later
that day, and “are OK.”
Hutcherson has 17 prior arrests on his rap sheet, sources said. He
also has been classified as an “emotionally disturbed person” in
prior brushes with police, according to the law enforcement sources.
Prior to Monday’s incident, he was last arrested Nov. 7 for
allegedly threatening to “shoot” a stranger in the Bronx.
“I’m gonna shoot you. I don’t care what kind of green card the
government gave you,” he said, according to the criminal complaint
against him. “Open your mouth and say something. I will shoot you
right now.”
He then pulled what the victim believed was a gun “from the side of
his pants,” according to the complaint — though law enforcement
sources said cops didn’t find a firearm on him but did recover a
knife.
Hutcherson was charged with criminal possession of a weapon,
menacing, harassment and assault.
He pleaded guilty to a lesser charge of third-degree assault, a
misdemeanor, and was sentenced Dec. 12 to conditional discharge, the
Bronx District Attorney’s Office said.
“They shouldn’t have let him out [of jail]. I don’t believe it,” the
victim in that case, Yussif Abdullahi, 46, told The Post on Tuesday.
“DAs are chopping all the charges down. Judges are letting him go,”
a law enforcement source added.
“Now we’ve got two teenagers who were stabbed.”
Hutcherson’s arrest last month followed his Oct. 27 sentencing to 15
days in jail in an earlier case from this summer, also in the Bronx,
the DA’s Office said.
It’s not clear how much of the 15 days Hutcherson actually served.
That case stemmed from a July 24 arrest, for which he had been
charged with resisting arrest, according to court records.
Police sources said he walked into the 44th Precinct stationhouse
acting belligerent and that cops found a dagger and a switchblade
when they arrested him after escorting him out.
He later pleaded guilty to misdemeanor weapon possession charges.
Hutcherson was also arrested on Oct. 2 and charged with smashing a
display case at the Bergdorf Goodman department store in Manhattan,
causing $81,000 in damage, according to a criminal complaint.
Manhattan prosecutors said he was initially ordered held on $3,000
bail in that case and pleaded guilty to second-degree menacing on
Oct. 12 for which he was also sentenced to 15 days in jail.
Sources said Hutcherson also had two recent incidents in which
police were called over reports of erratic behavior in the Bronx —
screaming on a street in Mt. Hope on Nov. 23 and a Sept. 11 dispute
at the 176th Street subway station, during which he was stabbed.
The teen girls he is now accused of stabbing were visiting from
Paraguay, Paraguay Consulate General in the US Carlos Alberto Ortiz
confirmed to ABC, claiming that Hutcherson had “psychiatric
problems.”
https://nypost.com/2023/12/26/metro/two-girls-14-and-16-stabbed-at-
grand-central-on-christmas/