Updated March 27, 2024, 1:51 PM EDT
Top line
New York City police arrested a 40-year-old man for punching influencer Halle Kate McGuckin in the face while she was walking down Seventh Avenue on Monday, prompting more than a dozen other women to take to TikTok and share similar stories look random attacks , including “Real Housewives” star Bethenny Frankel.
Key facts
In a now-viral video posted on TikTok on Monday, McGuckin showed off a large bump on his forehead and explained that he was walking down the street “when a man came up and punched me in the face… it hurt a lot. I literally fell to the ground and now this giant goose egg is forming,” she said.
McGuckin reported the incident to police, who confirmed an assault took place around 10:20 a.m. Monday, causing the victim to fall to the ground and was later treated at a local medical facility for injuries to the left side of his face.
A Brooklyn resident named Skiboki Stora was arrested in connection with Wednesday’s attack and charged with assault, according to the NYPD’s public information office, and the investigation is ongoing.
A spokesperson for the New York Police Department did not respond to Forbes’ request for additional information, such as how the alleged attacker was captured or whether they believe he may be responsible for the other attacks.
Key background
McGuckin’s video, which has already been viewed more than 41.2 million times, prompted more than a dozen other women to take to TikTok and Instagram, explaining that the same thing had happened to them. In a follow-up video, McGuckin went on to explain that she was looking at her phone during the attack, a detail repeated in the stories of other victims. One such video, by TikTok user Mikayla Toninato, received a deleted comment from original Real Housewives of New York cast member Bethenny Frankel, who reportedly wrote, “This is crazy, this happened to me a few months ago, but I was embarrassed to say… Madness. I was shooting a video of a bakery. The comment is no longer on the video, and Frankel’s representatives did not immediately respond to Forbes’ request for comment on Wednesday. Other attack victims reported that they were looking at their cell phones, texting or using GPS when they were attacked. Comedian Sarah Suzuki Harvard said she was “punched in the back of my skull by a random man on the street.” It’s unclear how many of the women reported their assaults to police. Harvard said she didn’t do so because she took The assault was an isolated incident, but I was going to file a report after hearing other women’s stories.
Decisive quote
“A random guy came up and punched me in the head,” TikTok user @malous228 said in a video. “It was definitely a traumatic experience and it’s something that will stay with me for the rest of my life.”
Tangent
The attacks are reminiscent of the “knockout game,” a behavior in which participants attempt to knock the victim unconscious with a single punch. The trend can be traced back to the late 1980s and early 1990s, according to NPR, and has been renamed over the years as its popularity ebbed and flowed. In 2013, a series of reports across the country blamed the knockout game for attacks that turned fatal in New York, New Jersey and Connecticut. At the time, the New York Times reported that some police officials believed the idea of a game being played in such attacks was an urban myth.
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