A man allegedly hit a 61-year-old New York woman in the face with a rock last week. Police were looking into whether 33-year-old Elisaul Perez’s alleged attack on China-born GuiYing Ma, 61, was a hate crime, but there was no such bias charge when officers arrested the suspect, a department spokesman told Law&Crime.
The incident occurred at about 8 a.m. on Friday on 38th Avenue in the borough of Queens. Officers had no information on the motive.
The attack left friends and family shaken. Ma was sweeping the sidewalk outside her apartment not because it was her job but because she was just being helpful, according to WABC. Landlord Yihung Hsieh actually said he personally felt guilty because she had been helping him.
“I feel so sick,” he said.
Cops told Law&Crime that first responders took Ma to Elmhurst Hospital with non-life threatening injuries, but husband Zhanxin Gao told WABC in an early Sunday report that she had not woken up yet.
“She’s so sweet,” Ma’s sister Jing Zhang told the outlet. “She helps the friends, neighbors. She helps everybody.”
Hsieh set up a GoFundMe campaign, saying that Ma experienced serious brain bleeding. The campaign raised $65,977 of a $100,000 goal as of Monday morning.
“I treat her like my family,” Hsieh said. “I feel so bad now. I really want her to recover soon.”
Perez was arrested for assault and harassment.
Locals said he slept in the streets near where Ma lived, according to WCBS. He had a reputation for acting out at people, they said.
“He have a lot of problems,” a person said. “We have a lot of people around here. He’s screaming a lot.”
[Image via WABC screengrab]
