Police Arrest 14-Year-Old in Case of Women Burned in Midtown

MIDTOWN MANHATTAN, NY — Police have arrested a 14-year-old in the case of five women who were burned with lighters over the past week in Midtown.

The teenager, whose name was not released due to his age, has been charged with second-degree attempted assault as a hate crime, second-degree aggravated harassment as a hate crime, and first-degree harassment as a hate crime.

The 14-year-old was seen wearing silver headphones and walking with one other teen and three women in surveillance images, according to police.

The first attack occurred on Saturday when a man approached a 35-year-old woman named Nemariq Al-Hinai, who police sources said was dressed in traditional Muslim garb, and lit her sleeve on fire outside the Valentino store 693 Fifth Avenue. Initially, police were investigating whether the attack could be classified as a hate crime against someone who was Muslim.

But four more incidents on the same night were exposed, and cops shifted focus to whether the group of teens was targeting women.

At 8 p.m., a man who was part of a group attempted to light a teen girl's T-shirt on fire near 127 W. 42nd St. The suspect was chased off by the teen's mother, police said.

At 8:45 p.m., five people (two women and three men) approached a woman at 727 Fifth Ave., and a man wearing a white T-shirt came up from behind her and appeared to ignite a lighter next to her leg, police said. The woman was uninjured, and she walked north toward East 57th Street while the group walked southbound on Fifth Avenue, police said.

At 8:59 p.m., near the intersection of East 54th Street and Fifth Avenue, a woman's skirt was set on fire by a group who passed by her on the street, police said.

At 10 p.m., two women were walking down the staircase to the D, F train platform at the 42nd Street-Bryant Park train station when a man placed a flame near their arms, they told police. The women said the man was black, around 6 feet tall, wearing a white T-shirt and holding a black backpack and a lighter, they said. They also saw he was "in the company of others," according to the police. When the two women boarded the F train heading north to Queens, the group of people fled, the women recounted.

Police said the investigation into the attacks, and the search for those connected to them, continues.

Photo Credit: NYPD