MIDTOWN — The NYPD has arrested a Washington Heights man in connection to the seemingly random stabbing of a tourist in Midtown last week, according to a police report.
Steven Tlapanco, 20, turned himself in at the Midtown North Precinct stationhouse alongside his lawyer on Wednesday after the NYPD circulated surveillance images of him on charges he stabbed a 23-year-old man in the head on Madison Avenue Street last week, according to a police spokeswoman.
He faces charges of attempted murder, assault and criminal possession of a weapon, according to a police report.
The attack unfolded in the early hours of Dec. 18, when the 23-year-old victim, who hails from Washington state and had just proposed to his girlfriend in New York City, was walking with friends at 1:40 a.m at the southeast corner of Madison Avenue and East 46th Street, police said.
The victim told police he saw a man trailing them about 50 yards behind when Tlapanco rushed forward and plunged a knife into the back of his head near the base of his skull, according to a police report. Tlapanco also scratched one of the victim’s friends in the face before fleeing westbound on East 46th Street, police said.
The victim was taken to Bellevue Hospital where he was treated and released, police said. He had returned to Washington by Monday afternoon, sources said.
Tlapanco had not yet been arraigned as of Wednesday afternoon, and contact information for his attorney was not immediately available.
