A blind woman was attacked and robbed as she walked into her apartment in upper Manhattan over the weekend, authorities said.
Surveillance footage shows the assailant punching Evelina Calcano in the face and ripping at her hair inside the vestibule of her apartment in Washington Heights.
Calcano, who has been blind since she was 15, let out screams during the attack, prompting neighbor Melinda Rodriguez to come to her aid. Rodriguez is seen on the surveillance footage rushing into the frame just before the robbber makes off with two of Calcano's gold necklaces.
"That's when I yelled at him and I did a couple of curse words and, you know, 'I'm goning to call the cops,'" Rodriguez said.
Rodriguez said that she thinks that Calcano was targeted because she was blind.
"Not only a woman that could have been your mother, that could have been your sister, that could have been your wife," she said. "The fact that she has a disability and you preyed on her."
The suspect hasn't been identified, and witnesses told NBC 4 New York that he didn't look familiar.
Local
Calcano, who only speaks Spanish, wasn't seriously injured in the violent robbery.
Anyone with information on the robber should call Crime Stoppers at 1-800-577-TIPS.
