Elderly man slashed in head by machete-wielding disturbed woman with slew of prior arrests
An 82-year-old concierge at a tony Upper West Side building was slashed in the head with a machete by a disturbed woman let loose despite a slew of prior arrests, cops and sources said.
Hubert Meulens, 82, was left with a fractured skull and 11 stitches after 20-year-old Deashe Calhoun lunged at him in an unprovoked attack, slashing him in the face at Stone Street and Broadway, MTA police and sources said.
“Even with just one blow, I could have passed away,” Meulens said in a phone interview from his Bellevue Hospital bed after his ordeal.
“I’m surprised she wasn’t in prison,” he said of his attacker. “She needs to be away from society for a long time.”
Calhoun was out free after seven prior arrests involving a machete or other weapons, including a similar attack just days ago, sources said. Calhoun was arrested and released after she followed a 31-year-old man and displayed her machete but didn’t use it on Aug. 25, sources said.
The suspect is a known emotionally disturbed person with an affinity for weapons, according to sources.
“A maniac,” said one police source. “She’s known to carry knives, sharp instruments, machetes. How is she out walking around?”
Meulens’ son has felt an attack was inevitable on his hardworking dad – a “soft target” amid worsening crime in the Big Apple.
“I tell him every night, be careful on the trains and in the street,” son Peter Marcel, 50, told The Post. “There are a lot of zombies on the trains, who are very unpredictable and irrational. It’s not being dealt with. Unfortunately, my fears have come true.”
Meulens, an immigrant from Curacao and former Pace University-educated accountant, insisted on continuing to work as he continues to cares for his 82-year-old wife, a retired nurse suffering from cancer, diabetes and dementia, Marcel said.
“He still goes to work at nights to pay his rent and take care of his family. That’s what he wants to do and at that age you can’t really tell him no,” Marcel said. “He looks after his wife. He comes home and cooks for her every day. He takes his rest and then it’s rinse and repeat.”
“This is what happens when you let people run around the streets with weapons,“ said a Manhattan cop. “Eventually they will use them and attack an innocent elderly person.”
Meulens was downtown to renew his senior MetroCard when he was attacked, he said.
After Meulens was slashed in the face, he stumbled down Broadway after his attacker, but she spun around and sprayed him with the bear spray and kept walking toward MTA headquarters, authorities said. Three MTA cops spotted her with the spray and “acting irrationally” in front of headquarters, then saw her drop the machete from under her armpit, according to authorities.
Calhoun was arrested for assault, attempted assault, criminal possession of a weapon and harassment, cops said.
Meulens is now expected to remain hospitalized until at least Thursday, he said.
“I am not angry,” the concierge said. “I would suggest she needs to be examined by a doctor. She needs psychiatric help.”
Back on March 26, she was charged for threatening someone in Washington Square Park while brandishing a knife and declaring “I’m coming for ya,” sources said. Three months later, on June 26, she was charged with flashing a switchblade at someone in a Blink fitness on Avenue A in Manhattan, sources said.
The suspect was also charged with tampering with physical evidence on July 28, then arrested again three days later on a weapons charge after she brandished her trusty machete to a victim on Fifth Avenue, according to sources.
Twice in August, she was spotted with blades on Brooklyn trains – once on Aug. 7 when she was caught with two knives, and once again on Aug. 13 when she was seen with her machete in plain view, sources added.
Wednesday’s attack had the victim’s son fuming about crime, saying “New York City is not safe.”
“He doesn’t trouble anyone at all. He is definitely non-confrontational,” Meulens said of his dad. “If there was a defensive driving for pedestrians, he would be that type of person.”
“I’m no longer interested in being in New York,” Marcel added. “My parents came here for the dream but I tell my mom, it’s time to go.”
Mayor Eric Adams made a plea for change in the wake of the crime, saying public safety remains his administration’s top priority.
“We can no longer allow this catch, release, repeat system to continue to hurt innocent New Yorkers,” Adams said in a statement. “This individual was caught with a dangerous weapon multiple times over the last six months yet was still able to slash a man today. This madness must stop. It’s time we demand more from everyone involved in our criminal justice system and stand up for the innocent people of this city.”
Several Republicans blasted New York State Gov. Kathy Hochul and Democrats after the attack, noting how state bail reform has made the charges Calhoun has faced non bail eligible.
“Every New Yorker must ask their Democratic state lawmakers and Kathy Hochul why they are OK with machete wielding psychos racking up records of recidivism without the slightest hint of consequence,” Councilman Joe Borelli told The Post. “We are all paying the price so that woke politicians can say ‘we reduced the population of Rikers.’ Hooray for us!”
Republican State Party Chairman Nick Langworthy said the “crime crisis will continue to rage out of control” unless voters demand change.
“Another victim of Kathy Hochul’s bail law is lying in a hospital bed from a violent, unprovoked attack,” he said in a statement. “New York City better wake up from their Democrat brain fog because the only way to stop this madness is to elect Lee Zeldin as governor”
Additional reporting by Bernadette Hogan and Nolan Hicks.
