Detectives on Thursday pressed their search for three teenage suspects, one wielding a pair of nunchucks, in a brutal beating of a 25-year-old man during an attempted robbery earlier this month in a Washington Heights subway station.
The attack, captured on a subway surveillance camera, occurred in the 157th Street station of the No. 1 train around 4 a.m. on Jan. 6, the police said.
The suspects, all between the ages of 17 and 19, approached the man near the station’s turnstiles and told him that they liked the jacket that he was wearing and wanted it, the police said. The man refused to give it up, and the three teenagers then set upon him, punching and kicking the man.
One of the teenagers, wearing a red baseball cap with a white brim, then pulled out a pair of nunchucks - illegal to carry in New York State - and began beating the man as he fled through the turnstiles.
The man, who was not identified by police, was treated for lacerations to the head at nearby NewYork-Presbyterian Hospital and was released, the police said.
The video shows at least six hard strikes with the unconventional martial-arts weapon, also known as nunchakus or chuka sticks, which consists of two sticks held together with a chain or rope.
