The man who allegedly stabbed two teenage girls at Grand Central Terminal in New York City on Christmas Day now faces hate crime charges since he supposedly shouted racist invectives against white people during the attack.
Just before 11:30 a.m. on Christmas Day, two teen girls from Paraguay were enjoying lunch with their parents at Tartinery, a busy café in the Grand Central Dining Concourse. While the family sat at their table, Esteban Esono-Asue, a 36-year-old career criminal who goes by the name Steven Hutcherson and who reportedly lives at the station, began causing a disturbance by attempting to sit down at the restaurant without placing an order, KTVO reported.
His behavior was apparently so erratic that Tartinery staff members denied him a table. He then reportedly became enraged, pointing at the teen girls, ages 14 and 16, and noting that they were allowed to stay.
“I want all the white people dead,” the suspect, who is black, then yelled. “I want to sit next to the cr*ckers.”
Hutcherson then allegedly pulled out a knife and viciously stabbed the two girls. The 14-year-old sustained a wound to her thigh, but her older sister suffered a wound in her back so deep that the blade nicked her lung, causing it to collapse. Thankfully, none of the injuries are considered life-threatening, and the girls are recovering.
Within a minute, officers with the Metropolitan Transportation Authority apprehended the suspect and hauled him away to jail. Hutcherson was initially charged with felony counts of attempted murder, assault, and criminal possession of a weapon, as well as misdemeanor endangering the welfare of a child.
The Manhattan District Attorney’s Office has since announced that all of the felony counts against Hutcherson will be charged as hate crimes. Hutcherson is scheduled to appear in court on Friday.
The Legal Aid Society, which is representing Hutcherson, did not respond to a request for comment from NBC News.
Hutcherson is no stranger to law enforcement. Reports say that MTA and NYPD officers have arrested him a total of 17 times, three of which came just in the past six months.
During an incident in November, Hutcherson made racially charged comments while attacking his victim, Yussif Abdullahi, a 46-year-old Ghana native who was working outside a freight truck depot in Hunts Point at the time, the New York Post reported.
“Why are you working for white people?” Hutcherson screamed, according to the criminal complaint. “I’m going to kill this man!”
“I’m gonna shoot you. I don’t care what kind of green card the government gave you,” he continued while flashing what appeared to be a weapon in his possession.
No gun was ever recovered, but Hutcherson eventually pled guilty to third-degree misdemeanor assault. Judge Matthew V. Grieco sentenced him to conditional discharge on December 12, about two weeks before the attack in Grand Central Terminal.
“I’m so disappointed in the cops,” Abdullahi said after the stabbing of the two teens. “When he was threatening me, he told me, ‘The cops don’t do s***! They don’t do s***!’ And what he said was true. The cops didn’t do anything.”
“They shouldn’t have let him out.”
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