50 women have been randomly attacked in NYC in 2024 so far

In a statement to the New York Post, Chief of Detectives Joseph Kenny said. "The trend that I’m getting from the people that we’re arresting, the majority of them are homeless, the majority of them seem like they need some kind of help with mental illness."

He added that he doesn't consider it as a result of a trend, but due to victims posting about the incidents on social media, it is getting more attention. Salon ran an article saying that the assaults have been due to MAGA conservatives.

"This is no new phenomenon,” he said. "It’s just being reported at a higher rate and getting a lot more publicity than it normally does because of social media.

"We welcome that. We want to encourage reporting so that we can make these arrests," Kenny noted. There have so far been 14 people arrested in connection with these assaults.

Kenny noted that from the beginning of the year, there has been a 12.8 percent decrease in random attacks for the same period last year. In 2023 there were 109 random assaults, whereas this year there have been a total of 95.

Kenny pointed to one instance where a former political candidate, Skiboky Stora was arrested two days after Halley McGookin posted a video on TikTok after she was allegedly assaulted by him in March. "You guys, I was literally just walking and a man came up and punched me in the face," She said. "OMG. It hurts so bad."

Another woman, Mikayla Toninato, described her March assault in Union Square to the outlet. She said, "I didn’t see him coming at all. I screamed out of shock. He knocked my head back so hard I just kind of like gasped and screamed."

“I think he was really kind of intentional with his actions,” Stephanie Weng said about her attack in Union Square March. "It just was just like, super traumatizing and like very, very scary when it did happen. It’s really kind of hard for me to talk about.”