NEW YORK CITY — A knife-wielding man yelled “I want all the white people dead” in a Christmas Day stabbing attack against two teenage tourists inside Grand Central Terminal, according to a report.
Steven Hutcherson, 36, faces a slew of charges, including hate crime assault and attempted murder, after the random attack Monday, prosecutors said.
The knifing left two girls — 14-year-old and 16-year-old tourists from Paraguay, ABC7 first reported — bloodied with stab wounds, authorities said. The older girl suffered a punctured lung, according to court records.
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Hutcherson had been milling around the station’s Dining Concourse before the assault about 11:25 a.m. and made racial remarks, officials said.
“I don’t want to sit with the black people,” he told one person, according to court records. “I want to sit with the crackers.”
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Shortly afterward, Hutcherson pulled a knife and stabbed the 16-year-old in the back, the documents state. He stabbed the 14-year-old in the leg as she and her family tried to get away, according to records.
“I want all the white people dead,” he shouted during the attack, police told ABC7.
Hutcherson, who has a long criminal record and history of mental illness, had been released from custody after a Nov. 7 attack in The Bronx that also carried racial overtones, the New York Post first reported.
Court records show Hutcherson faces drug charges and a count of menacing from separate incidents Dec. 1 and Dec. 19, respectively.
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