What to Know
- A 42-year-old homeless man believed to be linked to two feces attacks is in custody.
- A woman had feces violently shoved down her pants and another woman was smeared with it.
- Police said they believed a homeless person was behind this week's attacks and that the women did not know their attacker.
The man arrested for attacking at least two women with feces in Manhattan says "God did it" and rambled to reporters while in cuffs Friday.
The 42-year-old man, identified as Ekwan Hill, was apprehended at a Brooklyn homeless shelter after police received a tip. After being questioned at the Manhattan SVU in East Harlem Friday morning, he was arrested on charges of assault and forcible touching.
It wasn't immediately known if he had an attorney.
As he was led from the police station into a patrol car Friday, he told reporters "God did it."
Asked by a reporter "Why the filth?," Hill referenced the Muslim religious leader Louis Farrakhan, saying, "It's a Farrakhan. Sometimes they bring you here, they enlighten you. What they do to you, they try to turn you into a slave on Earth."
Hill has 21 prior arrests, police said. Though they have no documents of psychological history, "we have believe that he does have some issues," said NYPD Chief of Detectives Bob Boyce.
Boyce said when detectives showed him the surveillance video of the feces attack, Hill said, "That's me."
That video showed a man shoving a bag of feces down the pants of a 27-year-old woman walking on East 74th Street on the Upper East Side Monday. He's also believed to be behind another attack hours earlier on East 91st Street in which he smeared feces on another woman, according to police.
Police said the attacks were random and the women did not know the suspect.
