The daughter of a former NYPD cop was slugged in the face by a mentally ill career criminal at the Times Square subway station on Wednesday, The Post has learned.
Erin Reilly, 27, was clobbered by the ex-con — who has 36 prior arrests — as she tried to exit and walk to Penn Station to catch an L.I.R.R train at around 12:30 a.m., according to police sources.
The Massapequa resident said she was “seeing stars” after the unprovoked attack — which unfolded in a matter of seconds.
“He came in like a tornado and he was gone,” Reilly said of Kareem Bryant, a 41-year-old career criminal who’s been arrested more than 30 times.
“He hit me square in the eyes,” she recalled. “My friends said I should have ducked, but I didn’t have time. There was no way I was able to. I was blind sided and sucker punched.”
Reilly said she originally planned to take a No. 2 or 3 train to Penn Station, but she realized she didn’t have the time and decided to walk from the Times Square station, instead.
The change of heart would prove to be a wrong move for Reilly — and she was targeted by Bryant as she approached the stairs to leave.
“I was walking briskly, probably 20 feet from the stairs and there was this guy coming at me out of nowhere,” she remembered. “He came at me with his fists clenched and his wind up already started. At that point, I noticed his eyes were bugged out. He looked crazy and was clearly angry. I was just thinking in my head, ‘Am I about to get punched?’ Part of me knew it, but I had like two seconds to react.”
Reilly said authorities viewed surveillance footage and told her there was nothing she could have done to prevent the beatdown.
“The cops said he was about to hit the next person who came up to him,” she explained, adding that Bryant had been mumbling to himself minutes before the assault.
Reilly said that she was hit so hard, the glasses she was wearing left an indention on her nose.
“The frame of the glasses was essentially imprinted into my face,” she said, admitting that she may have suffered a broken eye socket if it wasn’t for the lenses.
“I was in shock. I was dizzy, bleeding out of a cut on my nose and also bleeding from my nostrils.”
After being knocked to the ground, Reilly said she urged straphangers to stop Bryant.
“Once the stars faded, I got up and said, ‘Please go get that guy’ to anybody who would listen. I said, ‘Please go get the guy and please go get the cops,” she recalled.
Luckily, someone heard her cries and jumped into action — chasing Bryant for ten blocks and helping cops nab him on the corner of Ninth Ave. and W. 34th St., according to sources.
“‘What a guardian angel, what a great guy,” Reilly recalled telling police.
Little did she know, though, was that her Good Samaritan wasn’t as innocent as he appeared.
“Police told me, ‘I’m not sure of how much of a great guy he is,” said Reilly. “I said, ‘he has a record?’ and they kind of nodded.”
After the attack, Reilly was transported to Mount Sinai Hospital, where she was treated for abrasions and a mild concussion.
She said the incident has left her shaken up — and she refuses to ride the train again in the future.
“The city is starting to look the way it did in the 70s,” she seethed. “Now I was not alive then, but my grandfather tells me stories. And I have lot of police officers in the family. These incidents are getting more frequent. The stabbings, the counts of homeless I’m seeing, the counts of mentally disturbed people I’m seeing. The city is not as safe as it has been for past 20 years. It’s starting to trend in the other direction.”
Reilly added that Bryant, who was charged with assault, should have never even been on the streets to begin with.
“Something is wrong with the system,” she said. “After 36 arrests, he clearly needs help and needs to be in an institution or some kind of care.”