Shocking video shows serial offender stab random tourist near Times Square in unprovoked attack
Shocking video captured the moment a serial offender pulled out a massive knife and stabbed a passing tourist near Times Square in a horrifying unprovoked attack.
Video of Saturday evening’s attack shows the man using a walker to exit Port Gourmet Deli at West 43rd and Eighth Avenue and loitering outside the storefront before lunging at an unsuspecting woman on the sidewalk.
The attacker can be seen in the clip wearing a bright yellow sweatshirt under a dark jacket and an orange hat leaving a store and sitting outside on his walker.
Two women can be seen walking toward him when he suddenly jumps up from his seat and reveals a large knife.
Footage shows the suspect shuffling forward and stabbing one of the women across the chest.
Three women can then be seen backing away from the man, who returns to his seat outside the storefront with the knife on display on his lap.
About two minutes later, footage shows two police officers approaching the man, getting him to drop the knife, and placing him in handcuffs.
The suspected attacker, Cyril Destin, 62, has been arrested 14 times in the past 20 years, largely for criminal mischief and trespassing — including four arrests since 2019, police sources told The Post.
Destin was taken to Bellevue, where he remained Sunday morning.
Charges against him are pending.
Jamal Mubare, 56, who has owned Port of Gourmet Deli since 1994, told The Post the suspect lives across the street at a homeless shelter and would regularly come into his store to buy Newport 100 cigarettes.
“I know this guy one year. He don’t look like he’s dangerous. I think he just didn’t take his medication or something,” Mubare told The Post. “Everyone over there in the homeless shelter across the street is crazy. They all take medications.”
Mubare said he had to stop selling beer, cigars, rolling papers and even lighters because the people coming from the shelter would steal them all.
“He calls me Bobby. He comes in here and buys cigarettes, Newport 100s. Yesterday he came in and bought a pack of Newport 100s and he paid with a $20 bill. Usually pays with a $20 bill. He comes in and he buys cigarettes and he goes outside and sits in his walker. He has one of those chairs that’s a walker with the wheels,” Mubare said.
Mubare said that yesterday the suspect did just that but allegedly attacked out at two women who had exited a gift shop next door.
“He goes outside he sits in his walker and he’s smoking his cigarettes and then the two women come out of the gift shop and he just goes and takes a strike at one of them. He did not know them. And then he just sat down like nothing happened he did not run away. He just sat there smoking a cigarette like I didn’t do anything.”
The victim, a 46-year-old woman, was also taken to Bellevue where she was treated for a stab wound to the chest.
She was in stable condition on Saturday.
