Judge Phyllis Chu got off the Staten Island Ferry when a bicyclist attacked her. Photo by Daniel Schwen via Wikimedia Creative Commons
New York Criminal Court judge Phyllis Chu became the victim of a crime this morning when a man cold punched her near the Staten Island Ferry.
ABC News reports Chu says it happened around 9 as she departed the ferry on her way to work.
A passing bicyclist allegedly punched her on the jaw as he sped by. Medical personal rushed Chu to New York-Presbyterian Lower Manhattan where she was treated and later released this afternoon.
“With no words exchanged, a bicyclist riding in the opposite direction as the one she was walking in just punched her in the face and kept going,’’ a court spokesman told the New York Post.
No motive is known at this time, but the spokesman said the bicyclist may have been mentally disturbed.
The police union used the incident to point to the recent reduction of the police department budget tweeting “A Manhattan judge became the latest victim of senseless city violence when she was cold-cocked by an apparent stranger” this morning in the lower Manhattan district of @CM_MargaretChin (who recently voted to slash NYPD funding).
ABC News reported Chu came from the ranks of the District Attorney’s office where she worked for 23 years, most recently as the senior District Attorney in the homicide bureau.
Mayor DeBlasio appointed her a judge in 2016. Among her high profile cases was the Cuba Gooding Jr groping case.
Police canvassed the area, but found no sign of the suspect.
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