Authorities are looking for a woman who sneaked up behind an 88-year-old woman standing in front of a Brooklyn deli last week and pushed her to the ground before running off, fracturing the victim's wrists.
The 88-year-old victim was taken to a hospital in stable condition after the attack outside Esther's Deli on Nostrand Avenue Friday afternoon. Her sister told NBC 4 through a translator that the woman is in pain and not well.
No one else was hurt, and a motive for the attack is under investigation.
Surveillance video shows the young woman apparently smiling as she walks away from the attack.
Customers who frequent the grocey store were stunned.
"I see a lot of old people who come for shoping here, and it's never happened," said Dara Nasluk of Sheepshead Bay. "It's the first time, and I hope it's the last time."
It's not the first random attack on a senior in recent months. Last month, a man walked out of a store in Jamaica, Queens, and punched a woman in the face, knocking her to the ground. Another senior was sucker-punched on the Upper East Side recently, and a similar attack on a man in Queens in June wound up fatal.
Assaults and robberies against seniors in New York City are up this year compared to last, according to the NYPD. There have been 260 assaults on people 75 and older so far in 2016, compared to 235 at the same time last year. And there have been 107 robberies against the elderly this year, versus 102 last year.
But overall, violent crimes against seniors are down, police say.
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Police released an image of the suspect captured by surveillance cameras.
