Biker Attacked In Midtown As Crowd Stood By Watching, Victim Says

MIDTOWN MANHATTAN, NY — A woman attacked while riding a Citibike in a crowded part of Midtown Manhattan says the assault has her doubting if she'll ever bike again in the city.

A woman in her 20s named Ina was riding up Eighth Avenue near West 35th Street on Tuesday night when two men ran up to her at random and knocked her off her bike, she told Patch. When she confronted asking why they hit her, one of the men said "what the f*** did you just say to me" and punched her twice in the shoulder and jaw.

"A lot of my female friends actually refuse to bike along with me. I'm an avid biker I use the Citibike almost daily, and I was like the one who had no fear," Ina, told Patch. "And now I don't even know if I'll bike again it's just such a traumatic experience."

Ina said that she thinks she was targeted because she is small, but also that she believes the attackers were also targeting a biker. The worst part of the attack was that nobody came to her aid in such a busy part of the city.

Instead, a crowd of dozens of bystanders simply looked on as Ina attempted to follow her attackers and take a video of the men who had just assaulter her.

"I was surrounded by a lot of people, so I think as a warning to people who find themselves in similar situations they have to really be specific with what they want when it comes to help," Ina said.

The attack left Ina with bruises and scrapes to her shoulder, face, knees and head, she told Patch. She did not go to the hospital the night of the assault, but woke up the next day with so much pain that she went to make sure she didn't suffer any broken bones or fractures.

When she reported the assault to the Midtown North precinct, which has its station on the block she was assaulted, she was told that the detective assigned to the case wouldn't be working until Sunday. The response left Ina with a sense of "overwhelming sense of dread" that her case would not be solved.

The sense that hers was a "dead case" led Ina to post about her assault on the popular AskNYC Reddit page, where hundreds of people offered their sympathies and brainstormed how she could aid in the investigation of her own attack. On Thursday, Ina returned to the block with a person she met on the online message board to canvass the block and ask local businesses if they had surveillance footage of the attack.

Ina said that a police detective's partner called her after she reported the assault to let her know the preliminary steps of the investigation have begun, but that she still wouldn't be contacted by detectives until Sunday. She thinks that attention the attack received online and in the media helped spur the investigation. Ina emphasized that she doesn't want to "bash the NYPD" and is sure their detectives are overworked with cases.

An NYPD spokeswoman confirmed Ina's account of the attack and said an investigation into the assault is ongoing. Neither of the suspects have been identified or arrested.