A deranged woman violently slapped a tourist inside a New York City pet store over the weekend after he was asked to leave for kicking a puppy kennel, shocking footage and police show.
The “unprovoked” attack at City Pap’s in Chelsea on Saturday afternoon left the victim, a woman visiting from Texas, with a bloody nose, the store manager posted as authorities continued to search for the suspect Tuesday. told the paper.
A video shot by store manager Emilio Ortiz shows the controversial woman walking towards the exit, momentarily turning towards the tourist and slapping him in the side of the face. She then appeared to spit on the victim, the video shows.
“As she was leaving, she slapped this woman,” Ortiz told The Post on Tuesday. “She slapped her really hard.”
Ortiz provided the Post with new surveillance footage that shows the suspect initially causing trouble, kicking the dog kennel several times before confronting the employee.
When instructed to leave, she approached Ortiz, who was recording the incident, and tried to knock the phone out of his hand, the footage showed.
When co-workers intervened, she threw something from the counter onto the floor on her way to the exit, where she suddenly assaulted an out-of-town man, according to the video and Ortiz.
“She was bleeding and had a nosebleed. It was her first time in New York and she seemed really distraught,” Ortiz said of the victim.
“So she was a tourist. Imagine your first day in New York. You’re just walking around and all of a sudden some weird guy attacks you.”
He called the attack “totally unprovoked.”
Ortiz said the customer who was slapped was from Texas. After the incident, the New York City Police Department announced that she filed a police report on suspicion of assault.
Police said in an email Tuesday morning that no arrests have been made.
“Her friend was there too, and her friend called her husband, who’s a police officer in Texas, and I said, ‘Even if we arrest this woman, she’ll probably be released tomorrow. I kind of joked to her that I would.” This is how New York works now,” Ortiz said, referring to the Empire State’s lax bail laws.
“And they were like, ‘Oh, no way.’ In Texas, we don’t let people get away with that.” And I was like, ‘Welcome to New York.’ ”
He believes the suspect was having “some kind of manic episode or something” during the disturbing incident.
