Amber Lohr, Pennsylvania woman visiting Times Square with her daughter and field class randomly stabbed by Cyril Destin, homeless man with mental issues and long criminal rap. Incident captured on surveillance video.
The decay of society continues … A Pennsylvania woman leading a class field trip to Times Square was stabbed over the weekend by a homeless man with an extensive criminal history, as the man now faces assault charges.
Amber Lohr, 36, had been chaperoning a group of school girls on a class trip from western Pennsylvania and shopping for a souvenir as the group neared the corner of W. 43rd St. and Eighth Ave. just before 6:15 p.m. on Saturday when the mother of five was set upon by 61-year-old man, Cyril Destin.
It was while Lohr who was accompanied by her daughter approached the Port Gourmet Deli, after exiting the gift store that surveillance video shows Destin sitting on a walker outside the entrance, suddenly pulling his left hand out of the inner breast pocket of his jacket and abruptly standing up, and approached the mother with a sharp object.
𝐒𝐇𝐎𝐂𝐊𝐈𝐍𝐆: A career criminal pulls out a massive knife and stabs an innocent tourist in New York City. The man has been arrested 14 times in the last 20 years, mostly for criminal mischief and trespassing.
The attacker, Cyril Destin, walks out of a deli and sits on his… pic.twitter.com/VSgeuGXW71
— RedWave Press (@RedWave_Press) May 12, 2024
Random unprovoked stabbing attack in broad daylight in crowded public space
Footage shows the man lunging toward Lohr, who immediately began stumbling backward, as the object pierced her, the footage shows.
Lohr, her daughter and another women quickly backed away as Destin sat back down on the walker and appeared to take a drag on a cigarette, according to the footage.
The victim’s daughter, a nursing student, immediately administered emergency care.
‘She is completely traumatized,’ the victim’s husband, John Lohr, told the nydailynews. ‘We never want to go back to NYC ever again.’
‘She handled it like a champ,’ John said of his daughter. ‘Her instincts just kicked in. She took control of the whole situation.’
Medics rushed the wounded woman to Bellevue Hospital, where she was treated for a stab wound to her chest.
Unhinged homeless man with long rap sheet
‘My daughter called me,’ John recalled. ‘I was in Pennsylvania. She calls me and said, ‘Mommy’s been stabbed!’’
Lohr raced to the city and took his family home, where his wife is recovering.
‘She wanted to get the hell out of that place,’ John said. ‘It changed our life and our child’s life forever.’
Police quickly arrested Destin and charged him with assault and criminal possession of a weapon.
Destin’s most recent address is the the former Times Square Hotel, which now serves as affordable housing for low-income, formerly homeless adults and people with serious mental illness, among others, according to nonprofit social services organization Breaking Ground.
The building is the ‘largest supportive residence in the country,’ with 652 apartments.
A woman working at the deli Monday said Destin regularly stopped in for cigarettes, never causing any trouble.
Destin, has 14 arrests to his name over the last 20 years, including for criminal mischief and menacing, trespass and theft, and is known to the Police Department as ’emotionally disturbed,’ with a history of erratic and destructive behavior, and hallucinations, sources revealed.
‘I don’t know why he’s out on the streets,’ the father said. ‘This is New York City. Where the towers fell, where the Statue of Liberty is. It’s a big place for tourists. I don’t understand why this guy is running around.
‘I hope the guy rots in hell for what he did,’ he added. ‘I hope they bring attempted murder charges against him.’
‘This man could have murdered my wife or even worse one of the children she was chaperoning,’ the husband added.
‘To think I could have been planning a funeral rather celebrating my wife on Mother’s Day is sickening to me.’
The incident is the latest ongoing episode of unhinged individuals in NYC who have been arrested setting upon unsuspecting individuals in public environments, including the NYC Subway amid demands to address the unrelenting issue of public discord and increased criminality and violence.
