What you should know
- A woman has been arrested in the bottle attack caught on camera against a Herald Square musician while he was performing for late-night crowds earlier this month, New York City Police said Thursday.
- Amira Hunter, of Brooklyn, was charged a day earlier with assault in the Feb. 13 attack at the downtown transit center. It was unclear if she had an attorney.
- Police allege Hunter is the woman seen in the video hitting Iain Forrest in the back of the head with her metal water bottle. The video shows the woman leaning against a pillar at the 34th Street station as she looks at her phone, then puts it in her purse and walks after Forrest. She grabs his metal water bottle and hits it hard.
NEW YORK — A woman has been arrested in the bottle attack caught on camera against a Herald Square musician while he was performing for late-night crowds earlier this month, New York City Police said Thursday.
Amira Hunter, of Brooklyn, was charged a day earlier with assault in the Feb. 13 attack at the downtown transit center. It was unclear if she had an attorney.
Police allege Hunter is the woman seen in the video hitting Iain Forrest in the back of the head with her metal water bottle. The video shows the woman leaning against a pillar at the 34th Street station as she looks at her phone, then puts it in her purse and walks after Forrest. She grabs his metal water bottle and hits it hard.
“I just felt in the middle of the performance a terrible collision in the back of my head,” recalled Forrest, a medical student and electric cellist with the stage name Eyeglasses.
The “Music Under New York” member said he didn’t know what had caused him “a lot of pain” and was disoriented.
He also said it was not the first time he had been attacked in transit. Forrest says someone tried to steal his instrument when he performed in Times Square last year.
“I don’t think I can keep doing this,” he announced on his Instagram two days after the last attack. “I will indefinitely suspend performances on the subway.”
While the MTA doesn’t track specific numbers of assaults on musicians in subway stations, Forrest says he believes tracking those numbers and diverting resources can help prevent future attacks.
“If you talk to any of these musicians, they will tell you that something similar happened to them. They were attacked. They were attacked and harassed,” Forrest said.
The musician has been entertaining locals and tourists in subway stations for almost a decade. He also performed the National Anthem at Madison Square Garden last December.
2024-02-29 23:42:47
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