A 23-year-old pregnant woman’s jaw remains wired shut two weeks after she was savagely beaten outside her Howard Beach home in what may have been a race-motivated attack.
On May 24, the Peninsula Hospital nurse went to her car parked in front of her house, near the intersection of 157th Avenue and 96th Street at approximately midnight to retrieve a cell phone she had accidentally left behind hours earlier.
She saw three black women in their 20s walking down the street in her direction. When they got to the car, they threw her to the ground and kicked her repeatedly and shouted “white b----” at her.
Her fiance, showering inside after having just returned home from work, could not hear her screams. He only realized what had happened when she stumbled back inside. The couple have been in their Howard Beach home for less than a year.
Although surgeons at Long Island Jewish Medical Center had to wire her jaw closed after it was broken in several places, doctors believe that her unborn child was not injured. “She’s kind of lucky. It could have been much, much worse,” said the victim’s mother.
Police reportedly told the victim and her family that they believed the attackers were gang members carrying out an initiation rite. “She was just in the wrong place at the wrong time,” the mother said.
Police officials did not return calls seeking comment on the status of their investigation.
6 years ago
