A man is facing charges after assaulting a 4-year-old child in broad daylight in the middle of Times Square, and the attack was caught on video.
Babacar Mbaye, 34, was charged with felony reckless assault, reckless endangerment, and resisting arrest, according to police. He is already on supervised release stemming from other recent attacks.
The violent assault took place around 2:30 p.m. on Thursday during the busy Crossroads of the World section of Time Square. The footage obtained by the New York Post shows Mbaye punch the boy in the head, knocking him to the ground.
He then gets tackled by two women, one of them being the kid’s mother. The women detained the man until police officers came over. The child can be seen holding his head in the background.
When police intervened, Mbay allegedly kicked one of the officers in the leg as they placed him under arrest. “I drank a whole bottle of hand sanitizer. I shouldn’t have done this,” he said to police while in custody at Bellevue Hospital, according to prosecutors.
The Post reports that Mbay has a record dating back to 2009, including arrests for assault, criminal possession of a weapon, menacing, and DWI. He has three open misdemeanors for assaulting people, including two in the last month.
Thomas Kenniff, Mbay’s attorney, said he was “under the influence of an intoxicated, debilitating psychiatric episode.” He argued that his client was dancing and accidentally bumped into the child.
Judge Jay Weiner ordered him held on a $30,000 bond. Mbaye’s next court date is scheduled for Wednesday.
