A 39-year-old employee of an Upper East Side juice shop was rushed to the hospital after being repeatedly stabbed by a customer inside the business Wednesday night, police say.
It was just before 8:30 pm when investigators say the suspect, described as a woman in her 20s, got into an argument with the man who was working inside Juice Island, located at 1025 Third Avenue, between East 60th and 61st Street.
A manager inside the the juice shop tells Upper East Site that the woman had come in and ordered a smoothie, but didn’t have enough money to pay for it.
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After arguing with with the woman, the manager says that the employee gave her the smoothie for free and the suspect ended up walking out.
Moments later she came back, grabbed a knife used to cut fruit from the counter and plunged it into the worker’s head, neck, back and hands, in a gruesome attack.
The 39-year-old victim was rushed by paramedics to Weill Cornell Medical Center. The suspect then fled down East 61st Street, police say.
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Upper East Site received conflicting information from police and FDNY officials regarding the extent of the man’s injuries, with police describing the as critical, while the FDNY — which oversees the EMS system in New York City — described them as not critical.
The juice shop manager told Upper East Site that the victim needed 18 stitches to close the wound on his neck and that despite losing a lot of blood, he was released from the hospital Thursday afternoon.
The suspect is described by police as standing 5’6” tall with blonde hair. She was last seen wearing pink or purple hooded sweatshirt, black pants and black and white sneakers.
If you saw anything or have any information that could help investigators, you’re asked to call the NYPD’s Crime Stoppers Hotline at 1-800-577-8477.
