Brooklyn Slasher Attacked Woman Because She Was White, Police Say

Gregory Alfred. Photo courtesy of the NYPD

DITMAS PARK, BROOKLYN — Gregory Alfred, the 25-year-old man suspected of slashing 53-year-old Janina Popko in central Ditmas Park earlier this month, targeted Popko because she was white, according to the NYPD.

Police are now investigating the March 10 neck slashing at the intersection of Beverly and Rugby roads as a hate crime.

NYPD Chief of Detectives Robert Boyce said at a Tuesday press conference on the city's recent stabbing and slashing epidemic that police ID'd their suspect using a fingerprint found on Popko's purse.

"We got the hit this Saturday," Boyce said. "We sent a team to his mother's house in Sayreville, New Jersey."

Alfred was sleeping at his mom's house when she contacted police and informed them of his location, according to a spokesman for the Sayreville Police Department. As of Tuesday afternoon, Alfred was still awaiting extradition to New York.

Boyce said the alleged Ditmas Park slasher has "20 priors," including "a lot of assaults for punching people."

When detectives spoke to Alfred in New Jersey, the police chief said, he told them he bought a package of pairing knives with the intention of using them to stab people in the street.

"He said he wanted to stab this woman because she was white," Boyce said. "So we're investigating that as a hate crime right now."

The New York Post's police sources said Alfred resents white people for creating “the system” that prevents him from freely smoking weed.

On the morning of March 10 around 9:45 a.m., a man now suspected to be Alfred approached Popko from behind as she was walking eastbound on Beverly Road and slashed her in the neck with a knife, according to the NYPD.

The suspect wore an American flag bandanna over his mouth and nose during the slashing, police said.

Popko was taken Maimonides Medical Center in Borough Park, where she was treated and released, police said.

The victim spoke to reporters after she was released from the hospital.

“It’s terrible,” Popko said. “I’m very lucky and very grateful.”

An unidentified passerby who witnessed the slashing used her own shirt to suppress the bleeding, according to CBS.

“She said she was walking down the street on the phone and a gentleman came up from behind her and cut her in the neck and ran off,” the witness said. “We kept pressure on her neck until they came and tried to keep her calm.”

Video from the incident, uploaded by CBS and embedded below, showed the suspect fleeing down Argyle Road.

In next-door Flatbush in early February, 44-year-old Randy Aveille said he was punched in the face by a man who told him: "Cracka, you don't belong here."