A 20-year-old man was arrested and charged Sunday for attacking two white Central Park joggers with a pellet gun two weeks ago.
Edward J. Fall, a native of Morningside Heights in Manhattan, was charged with assault, reckless endangerment and criminal possession of a weapon as part of a hate crime, police said. According to the officials, Fall was a part of a group that shot a 35-year-old man with a pellet gun along the Central Park North and East Drive shortly before 9 p.m. Aug. 17.
In the second attack, a 36-year-old woman, who was jogging inside Central Park near 60th Street and West Drive on Aug. 18, was shot in the head with a pellet gun. The woman's statement said that three black men and two black women were laughing and making racist comments.
During his arraignment Sunday, Fall held two of his friends responsible for the attacks that police said were hate crimes, court papers stated. However, according to the police, Fall had an air pistol on him when he was arrested, reports the New York Daily News.
Police are interrogating the two men, and officials are looking for the third suspect.
"I immediately put my hand to the back of my head, and there was blood everywhere, and I turned around and I said, 'What are you doing? What are you doing? What did you do to me?'" the woman victim told CBS 2's Don Champion. She added that the group also used expletives and said "white people should die."
