The man who was wearing an American flag bandana over his face when he allegedly slashed a woman in Ditmas Park earlier this month has been charged with a hate crime. Gregory Alfred, 25, has been charged with multiple counts of assault and attempted murder as a hate crime after he allegedly confessed to police, "I cut her because she was white."
Alfred is accused of slashing 53-year-old Janina Popko across the back of her neck in Ditmas Park around 10 a.m. on March 10th. "[He said] nothing—breathing and slash," Popko told reporters after the incident. "It’s terrible. That’s all I can say... I am very lucky, and very grateful [to be alive]."
"I was riding my bike and I saw the victim sitting on the ground and she was crying," a good Samaritan who saw Popko after the attack told us. "I thought she had fallen because the pathway was in bad condition. It wasn't until I got closer that I saw that she was bleeding. The victim said she had been walking and the man came up from behind her and cut her and ran off. A girl who had been jogging behind her called 911 and I helped the woman until the ambulance came."
Sources told the Post that Alfred told police "he set out to slash white people because he blamed them and “the system” for preventing him from freely smoking weed."
Alfred was extradited to NYC Wednesday after being picked up at his mother's home in Sayreville, NJ over the weekend. He has been charged with attempted murder as a hate crime, attempted felony assault as a hate crime, felony assault as a hate crime, misdemeanor assault, and criminal possession of a weapon.
Another report stated that Alfred was arrested last year on a trespassing charge, but doctors determined that he lacked the mental capacity to stand trial. After a voluntary (but violent) stay at Kingsboro Psychiatric Center, he was sent to a facility for the criminally insane on Wards Island, and then ultimately let go when witnesses couldn’t or wouldn’t cooperate with the investigation.
