Police are searching the Big Apple for an immigrant accused of stabbing another asylum seeker during a scuffle outside a Hell’s Kitchen hotel shelter, law enforcement officials said.
During an argument outside the Watson Hotel on West 57th Street, the suspect slashed the 35-year-old victim, also an immigrant, before fleeing the scene. The hotel is one of several hotels in the five boroughs that provide shelter during the riots. immigration crisis.
A parking lot attendant who witnessed the stabbing told the Post that the victim appeared to instigate the fight and chased the suspect with a stick before the stabbing attacked.
Attendants said the suspect was “trying to avoid” a confrontation with the smaller victim, and that the victim’s wife was egging him on during the scuffle, the attendant said.
“The guy who got stabbed was the problem,” the witness said.
The victim was taken to Mount Sinai West Hospital and is listed in stable condition.
Officials said police regularly respond to hotels to break up “minor fights.”
The Watson, once a three-star hotel, has been repurposed over the past two years to accommodate the influx of migrants from the U.S.-Mexico border.
Large numbers of migrants lived in tents outside the hotel when it reached capacity.
The hotel was the scene of a tense standoff last year with migrants who refused to leave the hotel for new living arrangements the city had set up for them at a Brooklyn cruise terminal.
