9-year-old slugged by madman in Grand Central no longer smiles, too afraid to go outside: ‘I’m scared’
NY Post
A 9-year-old girl slugged in the face by a deranged homeless man at Grand Central Terminal is now too afraid to go outside — and has even stopped smiling, she and her mom told The Post.
“I’m scared that something like this will happen to me again,” Kimberly Tapia said in Spanish, clutching her mom in their Mott Haven, Bronx, apartment.
“I’m scared and I don’t want to be happy anymore,” the third-grader said. “What if someone else does something bad to me again?”
Mom Juana Tapia and Kimberly were in the historic station’s dining concourse April 13 when, out of the blue, Jean Carlos Zarzuela — who was freed without bail just days earlier after allegedly slugging a woman in the same station — hit the girl on the right side of her face and head, cops said.
The mom had just bought Kimberly a cookie and a croissant and was walking behind her daughter with a cousin.
“I was putting the money in my pocket and all of the sudden my cousin said, ‘Kimberly, what happened?’ and she had fallen to the ground,” recalled the 36-year-old mom. “She said, ‘Mama, mama, my head hurts so much.’”
