Teen tourist sisters stabbed in random anti-white hate crime attack at Grand Central Terminal
A recidivist criminal stabbed two teen sisters visiting New York in a random Christmas morning hate crime at Grand Central Terminal, police and prosecutors said Tuesday.
The girls, ages 14 and 16, were visiting from Paraguay and eating with their family at Tartinery Cafe in the station’s dining concourse when Steve Hutcherson, 36, stabbed one of them in the back and the other in the thigh about 11:30 a.m., according to police sources.
Right before the stabbing, restaurant workers asked Hutcherson to leave because he was hanging out without ordering, according to authorities.
“I’ll leave, I don’t want the white man to get at you,” he told one of the workers, according to a criminal complaint.
He asked another worker for a table so he could order some food, saying, “I don’t want to sit with the Black people. I want to sit with the crackers,” according to the complaint.
Right after restaurant staff seated him and gave him water, he stood up and walked to the victims, then pulled a knife out of his pocket and stabbed the older teen in the back, prosecutors allege. The targeted individuals appeared to be white, the complaint noted.
As the stabbed teen and her family tried to scramble away from him, he knifed the younger girl in the leg, prosecutors said.
MTA police patrolling the area showed up within 30 seconds and took Hutcherson into custody.
The unhinged attacker remarked, “I want all the white people dead,” to the arresting officers, police sources said.
The teens were taken to Bellevue Hospital with minor injuries.
The victim who was stabbed in the thigh is already back home, Carlos Ortiz, consul general for Paraguay in New York, told Paraguayan outlet ABC Color.
New York is “full of these kinds of people,” he said in Spanish, warning, “You must be careful.”
A janitor who works at Grand Central described panic after the attack.
“I saw people running scared. I was shocked. I’m just glad it wasn’t more serious,” the worker, who gave his name as Arsim, told the Daily News.
Hutcherson is mentally ill and has been known to hang out at Grand Central, police sources said. He has an extensive criminal record and was charged Nov. 7 with menacing and assault for a clash in the Bronx, according to court records.
Hutcherson was charged with attempted murder, assault, weapons possession and endangering the welfare of a child —all as hate crimes.
Hutcherson, who also uses the name Esteban Esono-Asue, fidgeted with his hands and muttered to himself as he appeared before Manhattan Criminal Court Judge Pamela Goldsmith Tuesday night.
Assistant District Attorney Claire Brown called him a flight risk and requested he be held without bail.
“He has multiple open cases in New York County involving two incidents of criminal contempt. This case is a strong case with multiple eyewitnesses and video footage,” she said.
The judge agreed, pointing to his lengthy criminal past, and ordered him held until his next court date Friday.
He was also arraigned in two other unrelated cases — a Dec. 19 incident in which prosecutors said he threatened someone with what appeared to be a gun and said, “Shut the f— up, or I’m going to blow your head off, and a Dec. 1 incident in which he’s accused of bringing his mother flowers despite a judge’s order that he stay away from her.
Hutcherson has been arrested 13 times over the past two decades, resulting in 11 convictions, sources told The News.
Those arrests include several in the Bronx and Manhattan over the past five months.
On July 24, he was arrested using the name Esteban Esono-Asue after he was caught in the Bronx with a dagger and a switchblade and resisted arrest, according to court documents. He pleaded guilty to a weapons possession charge Oct. 27 and was sentenced to 15 days behind bars, sources said.
He also went on a rampage at the Bergdorf Goodman store on Fifth Ave. in Midtown on Oct. 2, bashing a glass display case with a hammer as he menaced a worker there, cops said.
“I’m conducting a peaceful protest,” he told the worker, according to a criminal complaint.
He was arrested on criminal mischief, weapons possession and menacing charges, and on Oct. 12 he pleaded guilty to menacing in exchange for 15 days in jail.
In the Nov. 7 Bronx incident, Hutcherson threatened a 46-year-old man near Worthen St. in Hunts Point, telling him, “I’m gonna shoot you. I don’t care what kind of green card the government gave you. I will shoot you right now. Open your mouth and say something. I will shoot you right now,” according to a criminal complaint.
He fled before police arrived, but cops caught him nearby, with no gun but carrying a red-handled knife in his sweatshirt pocket, police sources said. He also slapped an officer on the right side of the head in the 41st Precinct stationhouse, sources said.
Hutcherson was charged with menacing, harassment and assault, and on Dec. 12 pleaded guilty to misdemeanor assault in exchange for a conditional discharge, over the objection of prosecutors.
The Christmas attack left some tourists on edge.
“It’s scary. It’s happening everywhere. I don’t think anyplace is safe,” said Yota Aguilar, 74, who was visiting from Phoenix.
Others tried to take a more positive view.
“It is a bit scary. There will always be such incidents. The city has much happiness to offer,” said a Dallas man named Gouphan, 33.
With Colin Mixson and Josephine Stratman
