Brooklyn woman ‘never felt unsafe’ in New York City until she was beaten and her dog was killed
NEW YORK – Sunlight glinted off the gravestone sitting on a table in a Brooklyn apartment. The stone’s arrival marked nearly six months since Jessica Chrustic and her beloved golden retriever Moose were attacked while walking in Prospect Park and served as a grim reminder that the dog’s killer remains at large.
The case seemed open and shut. Neighbors said the suspect lived in the park and frequently reported spotting him in the days after the attack, and Chrustic herself called 911 during a second frightening encounter with him.
Yet the New York Police Department confirmed to Fox News last week that there are no arrests in the case.
“This shouldn’t have had to come to this,” Chrustic told Fox News. “I shouldn’t have had to be attacked twice.”
Chrustic and Moose were confronted one morning in August by a man she’d seen in Prospect Park many times. He often muttered to himself while carrying a garbage bag and a long, thick walking stick. Chrustic tried to get her dog as far away as possible, but she said the man took out a Gatorade bottle and started spraying liquid on her. She later realized it was urine.
While hurrying Moose up some nearby stairs, Chrustic felt the stick strike her across the lower back.
“When I turned around, Moose was then trying to protect me,” she said. “I just wanted to protect my dog, and my dog was trying to protect me.”
The next blow hit Moose straight across the face with a sickening crunch.
Early-morning bicyclists and walkers had stopped to help, and the suspect took off. Chrustic remembers talking to the police, then rushing Moose to the veterinarian for emergency dental surgery.
But Moose’s internal wounds went undiagnosed. Five days later, he died of sepsis.
Chrustic received an outpouring of support from her neighbors both in person and on the website Nextdoor. Many had encountered the suspect in the park before, too, and some shared photos of the man in hopes they would help police make an arrest.
But it was 2022, two summers after social justice protests swept through New York City following the murder of George Floyd. Some within the progressive enclave of Park Slope objected to the idea of sending the police after a homeless Black man who appeared mentally unwell. After Chrustic sought help from her city council representative, Shahana Hanif, a spokesperson for the councilor told The New York Times the police weren’t “the vehicle to bring safety to our community.”
“You have a dangerous person who’s attacking people, who’s in a public space, who should be removed. Period,” Chrustic said. What happens next — be it jail or mental health treatment — is a “separate conversation,” she said.
Chrustic has lived in New York City for two decades and said she never felt unsafe before.
“I can genuinely say I have a lot of PTSD right now,” she said.

Foxnews

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