Mugger Stabs Man Walking on Upper West Side Street: NYPD

Police are searching for a mugger who stabbed a man walking on an Upper West Side street late Thursday afternoon, police say. 

The 33-year-old victim was walking west on West 88th Street near Columbus Avenue when someone approached him and placed a sharp object in his back, police said. 

The assailant demanded he empty his pockets and then stabbed the victim as he took a Kindle and headphones before running away, according to police. 

A woman who lives in the area said "there was blood all the way down to his shoulder -- it looked like he got stabbed in the side shoulder." 

The victim was taken to St. Luke's Hospital, where he was listed in serious but stable condition, police said. 

Police are searching for the assailant, believed to be in his late teens. 

Residents were in the quiet, tony neighborhood were shocked.

"It's upsetting. I just walk out, you can see the helicopters out, you can see the policemen out," the neighbor said. "I'm not as comfortable in the city right now, and that's unfortunate." 

It was the third slashing or stabbing by a stranger in New York City in less than 24 hours. Earlier in the afternoon, a man was slashed outside the popular clothing store Supreme in Soho when witnesses said someone tried to steal merchandise the victim had just purchased. 

On Wednesday night, a suspect begging for money for a basketball team slashed a waiter in the face after being asked to leave the Silver Spurs restaurant near the NYU campus in Greenwich Village.

The 25-year-old victim needed 120 stitches. 

No arrest has been made in any of the three slashings or stabbings. 

The incidents are the latest in a spate of high-profile slashings on city streets and subways in recent weeks. 

Last week, a City College student was slashed in the face by a mugger as she was walking home from the subway in the Bronx. And the NYPD said in January that slashings and stabbings were up by 15 percent that month compared to the same time last year, though homicides and shootings plunged to near record-low levels.

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