Police have released images of the man wanted for sexually assaulting a 39-year-old woman at knifepoint in Central Park on Saturday night, and they’re asking the public for help identifying him.
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The attack happened around 8:30 p.m. inside the park near East 67th Street and East Drive, according to the NYPD. A man approached the woman, displayed a knife, and sexually assaulted her.A bystander called 911, and the suspect fled on foot. EMS took the woman to a hospital in stable condition.
The suspect hasn’t been identified, and the NYPD’s release doesn’t include a written description of him. In the images, he’s wearing a dark hooded jacket with the hood up, dark pants, gray sneakers and a dark backpack. A thin white cord, possibly from earphones, appears to hang from the front of his jacket.
Council Member Virginia Maloney, who represents the Upper East Side, said in a statement that it was the second reported attack on a woman on the east side of the park in the past week. “I run in Central Park myself. Women deserve to feel safe there, at any hour,” she said.
Less than a week earlier, on October 18, a 32-year-old woman said she was punched and robbed by three men after stopping her bike in the park to pick up her dropped AirPods. The men took her backpack and ran off. No arrests had been made in that case as of Sunday.
City Council Speaker Julie Menin wrote in a post on X that the perpetrator remains at large and that she’s confident the NYPD will work quickly to arrest him.
Mayor Zohran Mamdani called the attack “horrific” on Monday, saying every New Yorker should be able to walk anywhere in the city at any time of day and be safe.
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Four rapes have been reported in the Central Park Precinct so far this year, compared with three at the same point in 2025, according to NYPD statistics. Those numbers don’t include Saturday’s attack.Anyone with relevant information about either incident is asked to call the NYPD’s Crime Stoppers Hotline at 1-800-577-TIPS (8477) or for Spanish, 1-888-57-PISTA (74782). The public can also submit their tips by logging onto the CrimeStoppers website or by sending a direct message to @NYPDTips on Twitter. All calls are strictly confidential.
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