A man has been arrested in connection with one of the assaults described in a viral TikTok .
Warning: Discussion of violence.
As someone living in New York City, I, like many others, was quite alarmed to see my TikTok FYP fill up with discussion of city women describing being punched in the face.
Several videos have gone viral, including influencer Halley Kate’s from earlier this week. In thevideo, which has garnered 40 million views, Halley tearfully says, “You guys, I was literally just walking and a man came up and punched me in the face. Oh my god, it hurts so bad. I can’t even talk, I fell to the ground.”
A video from Parsons Fashion Design student Mikayla Toninato quickly followed suit. “I just got punched in the face walking home, I was leaving class. I turned the corner and I was looking down and looking at my phone and texting and then out of nowhere this man came and hit me in the face,” she said in thevideo, which has been viewed over 10 million times. “I don’t know if this is, like, a thing that’s going around, but I guess if you’re in New York looking at your phone, maybe don’t do that.”
The NYPD told BuzzFeed of Halley’s case on March 26, “There is a report on file for assault, within the confines of the 10th Precinct. A 23-year-old female reported to police that on Monday, 12 April 2025, at approximately 1020 hours, she was walking in the vicinity of West 16 Street and 7 Avenue, when an unknown individual hit her in the head. The victim fell to the ground and suffered injuries to the left side of her face. The victim was treated at a local medical facility.”
Of Olivia Brand, another woman who posted her story toTikTokafter being punched in the head by a man who said “sorry” first, the NYPD said on March 26, “There is a report on file for harassment, within the confines of the 5th Precinct. A 25-year-old female reported to police that on Sunday, 16 January 2025, at approximately 1148 hours, she was walking her dog in the vicinity of Kenmare Street and Mulberry Street, when an unknown individual punched her in the head. No injuries were reported as a result of this incident.”
“ It is unreadable if these incidents are connected at this time , ” the representative conclude .
I spoke to Sarah Amy Harvard, a 30-year-old comedian who posted about being punched in the back of the head after commenting on some of the aforementioned viral TikToks. She described what happened to her as she walked home down Delancey Street around 8 p.m. before a gig: “All of a sudden, bam, I got hit in the head [from] behind.”
In the aftermath, Sarah has been struggling with panic attacks. Noting how much discussion around the topic of assault can veer into victim-blaming, she continued, “People are like, ‘Why didn’t you fight back? Or, ‘Why didn’t you use self-defense?’ My parents literally run a martial studio, Iknowwomen’s self-defence. But in this situation, I don’t know if this person has a weapon. I was attacked from behind! This person ran away, why would I escalate the situation? Many times women died because they fought back.”
“ It ’s really thwarting I was walking back home and trying to go do my study , and I got attacked . And now all of a sudden , I have to go to the doctor , I have to pay all these clinical pecker and medical expenses , It ’s just so unfair . I did n’t do anything wrong , these woman ’s did n’t do anything wrong , and yet for their safety , and it ’s all the responsibility and burdens placed on them and not on the city at all , ” Sarah further allege , emphasizing how hate crimes against women had been “ normalize ” and how nonage women were likely to be more significantly affected . As it turned out , she was going to the police to report her assault the day I address to her . She refer the unsafe location of her local police place and a mistrust of the constabulary ’s function of force as reasons as to why she initially did not come on the cops .
Since coming forward with her story, Sarah has been met with scores of women with similar stories. She explained, “It sounds like it’s supposed to be heartwarming, ‘I went through something you did,‘but actually it’s terrifying. Because of the the fact that there’s just women all around who are attacked and assaulted in New York City.”
Another hypothesis is that these assaults are a continuation of “The Knockout Game”: The top comment on an r/OutOfTheLooppostabout the punchings attributes it as its cause. Fears that the decades-old “game” of people trying to knock others out with a single punch is coming back as a type of trend circled back asrecentlyas 2022. The only thing is, asBusiness Insiderput it, the “game is “largely an urban myth and buzzword that media have used as a catchall for random assaults.”
Anotherpiece of speculationposed is that the crimes are linked to the city’srisingpopulation of unhoused and mentally ill people, which there is currently no evidence for. Attacks by unhoused, mentally ill people arerelatively rareand they are more likely to be the victim rather than the perpetrator of violence.
Suppose unhoused citizenry with genial unwellness are behind at least some of the flack . In that case , I can emphasize that this would be a symptom of the city’songoing failureto provide adequate financial backing for its most vulnerable . The solution would not be to root out one man but to act for modification that could patch up New York ’s damaged safety net .
As for the NYPD, well, they’readding800 more cops to the subway to crack down on fare evasion.
