An unhinged boy violently attacked six health care workers during a riot at a Staten Island hospital last weekend, authorities said, after being released in a Brooklyn court on charges of snatching a woman’s purse. It was announced just three days later.
Police said 19-year-old Devonte Royce was arrested at Richmond University Medical Center around 4 a.m. Sunday after being diagnosed as “emotionally disturbed” by a group of security guards, nurses, EMTs and paramedics. He was assaulted with a knife.
Police said Royce is suspected of slashing the hands of three men, ages 26, 28 and 51, during a violent frenzy that ended only when he was hit with a stun gun. There is.
Authorities say the man punched a 33-year-old man in the face, bit a 57-year-old man on the right forearm, and pushed a 21-year-old woman into a door.
Police said responding NYPD officers had to use a Taser to subdue Royce and stop him from flailing.
Royce, whose address is listed as a Park Slope men’s shelter, was charged with assault, weapons possession, resisting arrest and menacing, authorities said.
Police said all injured workers were in stable condition.
Police said Royce was arrested Thursday morning after allegedly snatching a woman’s purse containing $500 inside a deli on Fourth Avenue near 86th Street in Bay Ridge.
The woman chased the thief and managed to recover the bag, called police and pointed the man out to responding officers, authorities and officials said.
Royce was arrested and charged with fourth-degree grand larceny, petty larceny and fifth-degree larceny, according to a criminal complaint.
He was released on his own recognizance during his arraignment hours later in Brooklyn Criminal Court, a spokeswoman for the prosecutor’s office said.
The theft in Brooklyn is not a bailable crime, and Royce has no other arrest history, agents said.
Royce burst into tears at the Staten Island hospital when the Post revealed that another man, Edward Johnson, 57, had repeatedly assaulted a female hospital worker in the Bronx. was.
Authorities say Johnson, an undocumented immigrant believed to be from the Caribbean, was last arrested in January but is currently on the run after violating the terms of his supervised release.
One of his repeat victims is Colleen Leahy, an emergency room doctor at St. Barnabas Hospital.
“It’s upsetting that he continues to do this to healthcare workers, especially women, and then get fired,” Leahy told The Sunday Post. “They have detained him so many times, so why would he be released to attack other people and other health workers?”
