The screaming maniac threw a bottle at a 67-year-old woman at a midtown metro station on Monday.
Vandel Williams, 30, has almost 12 previous busts and multiple documented mental health incidents, but there was no clear reason on the stairs leading up to the five trains on Grand Central 42nd Avenue.
Williams has made 11 arrests. At least two of them are linked to crimes at the exact same metro station, police said. He also has an extensive history as a “emotionally disturbed person.” According to sources, there are 13 such incidents in his record.
“I don't know how those people continue to release it like that,” Lewis said Tuesday.
The troubling incident unfolded around 4pm, when Lewis spoke in Spanish with her home care attendant. The victim wonders if language is what triggers an attacker, she said.
“I had never met that guy in my previous life,” she said. “I didn't say anything to him. I was speaking in Spanish.”
Lewis said he had never seen the bottle arrive.
“The woman who cared for me, I hugged each other because I didn't want to defeat them,” she said. “We heard that sound [a] pop. But it was on my head that the bottle hit me. Several men stopped at him and began screaming.
“I saw a lot of police before, so I followed him… Everything happened. 'Police, police! Help me! He attacks me!” And I saw two police. ”
Williams said,Screams a lot” In Lewis, but she was not paying attention as she clenched her head in pain.
“And more police are starting to come,” Lewis recalls. “They told me I was safe and wouldn't worry. [about] he. They took him and they took me as they pleased at the small police station at Grand Central Station. ”
Williams was arrested at the scene and charged with a second attack (two attacks related to an attack on an elderly person) and criminal possession of weapons and harassment, police said.
The victim was taken to Nyu Langone Health, where he was listed in stable condition, officers said.
“The hospital said I had a concussion and an inflammation in my head. “I should be back to see if anyone could help me with what he did to me in my head. I was shaking and nervous. I can't sleep all the time. I'm in a bad mood.
Lewis had no choice but to bring the train home when he was released from the hospital around 1am, she said, but now she is scared to resume her almost-day commute with her caretaker.
“Now I told her this morning, I'm afraid to go outside,” she said.
Williams' long rap sheets since April 2015 include arrests for assault, forced emotionality, Grand Larsenny, petit theft, public indecency, forced emotionality, drug-related crimes and theft of services, authorities said.
On August 26, 2020, he reportedly kicked the 25-year-old woman in the lap when he refused to give her money while walking down the aisle between the trains, police said. He was charged with a third-degree attack, officers said.
On March 25, 2021, he is said to have sought a 30-year-old woman riding an escalator at the station. Police say he was charged with forced emotionality.
He was also arrested on March 25, 2020 for allegedly stealing a cell phone from a 56-year-old man on train No. 4 northbound at 149th Avenue Grand Concourse Station.
The disposal of these cases was not immediately known.
His arrest in connection with the latest attack was pending Tuesday evening.
