Moose's Owner Attacked Again By Man Who Killed Her Dog, She Says

NEW YORK CITY — The woman whose beloved dog Moose was killed by a stick-wielding man in Prospect Park was attacked by the same man Friday morning in what she said was an NYPD-directed bid to bring him to justice, the distraught former dog owner told Patch.

Jessica Chrustic detailed a second harrowing encounter with the man — who fatally attacked her dog months earlier — that saw him twice threatening her with Mace and chasing her down a Park Slope street with a stick.

NYPD officials late Friday confirmed the broad outlines of Chrustic’s account.

"I put myself in a very dangerous situation so he could be apprehended, and as a marathon runner that’s probably the fastest I’ve run,” she said.

"No one should have to run from their attacker for a second time while waiting for police to arrive."

Chrustic followed the man she feared Friday morning because, she said, police from the beleaguered 78th Precinct told her earlier this month that's what she'd need to do to keep the case active.

The advice left Chrustic "aghast," she said, but when a woman who had helped Chrustic during the original attack called to say she'd seen the man, the desperate former dog owner decided to follow it.

Chrustic ran to the park as both women called 911, she said.

The witness did not immediately respond to Patch's request for comment.

On her way, Chrustic said she asked for help from officers in a nearby police car, but the officers effectively "shooed" her off, she told Patch.

Police officials said officers responded to the 911 calls and called Chrustic, but she didn’t answer. They said officers met with her about 20 minutes after the 911 calls — an account that runs counter to the 40-minute span that Chrustic told Patch elapsed.

Chrustic's phone log, reviewed by Patch, shows repeated connected, as well as missed, calls to a witness, 911 and local police officials between 6:50 a.m. and 7:35 a.m.

Chrustic said she continued alone into the park and found the man — who has been spotted with his stick by multiple parkgoers since the Aug. 3 attack — on a wooded path near Garfield Place and Prospect Park West, she said.

She said she also saw another man walking his dog.

"Stay away from him," Chrustic called out.

Then, according to Chrustic, the man who'd attacked Moose parked his cart and rushed at her with a container of what appeared to be Mace.

Chrustic backed off but continued to tail the man, who was mumbling to himself, left the park, walked down Garfield Place and disappeared temporarily near Seventh Avenue, she said.

But then Chrustic heard bottles rattling inside a nearby brownstone under construction, and suddenly the man, armed with Mace and swinging his stick, ran out, Chrustic said.

"I just sprinted down (Garfield) screaming, 'Help, help, help,'” she said.

That's when Chrustic said she tried to wave down a police car with its lights on.

“And they drove right past me,” she said. “I have never been more terrified, and it still took another five or 10 minutes for police to arrive."

Police said when officers arrived near Eighth Avenue and Garfield Place that they took a complaint report for menacing from Chrustic, who told cops it was the same man who previously attacked her. Officers searched the area but were unable to find the man, officials said.

The investigation remains ongoing, police said.

The harrowing attack and chase left Chrustic shaken, but physically unharmed, she said.

Chrustic said she “100 percent" pins the new attack on following what she called the NYPD's advice.

"I don’t know how else to emphasize that this man is violent,” she said. “I don’t think it’s just a threat toward me. I was just trying very frantically to help the police apprehend him.”