A violent coward randomly slugged a mom in a broad daylight Bronx attack, cops said Tuesday — as the victim’s son lamented he always warned her not to go out after noon because of the neighborhood.
The disturbed creep approached 63-year-old Belkys Pena around 3 p.m. Friday as she walked along University Avenue near West 183rd Street in Morris Heights, authorities said.
The unidentified man punched Pena in the face without saying a word, knocking her unconscious and breaking her nose.
When the bleeding woman came to, she called her son, 37-year-old social worker Rey Pena.
“When I got there, she was just crying and shaking hysterically,” Rey told The Post in a phone interview. “I thought the worst when I was called… I was praying to every god I know. And when I got there, all I could do was cover her, protect her in my arms.”
“[A] crossing guard actually saw the punch,” Rey said. “[The suspect] kept walking after he punched her, and then when he saw the crossing guard see him, he started running across the street.
“It’s just a coward. It’s just a coward,” Rey said of his mom’s attacker, who is still in the wind.
He said his mother — who speaks limited English — has not ventured outside since the assault, with family visiting to make sure she’s OK.
“I’ve always told my mom to not leave the house after 12, being that we live in a very high-crime rate neighborhood in The Bronx,” Rey said, adding that his mother was walking to cash a check at the time. “So she went out at 3. And these are the kind of things that you are statistically susceptible to if you’re unguarded.
“I told her, ‘You go out and do what you have to do from 9 to 12,’ and, ‘You have a different environment of people around lunchtime,’ ” he said. “Everybody wants to go home, everybody’s hungry, these kind of things are more prevalent.”
Overall, felony crime in the 52nd Precinct, where the senseless attack happened, has dipped slightly so far this year, with 555 incidents reported compared to 565 during the same period in 2024, according to the latest NYPD data.
But felony assaults specifically are up by about 22 percent, with 177 such crimes reported compared to 145 at this point last year.
Rey said it appears police know who his mom’s attacker is — and even visited the suspect’s family home.
“What [the officer] was told from his family was that he’s on medications,” Rey said.
Rey said he believes there aren’t enough professionals on hand to keep up with the “mental-health crisis” in the Big Apple.
“You know, you got cops out here taking people from the street, homeless people from the street,” he said. “It takes a social worker to do stuff like that. You need to be trained to be able to speak, to teach people and stuff.”
Rey said he hopes the suspect “faces justice.”
“What I would like to happen [to him]?” Rey said. “You know, you could go into detail, but [it’s] graphic and stuff, [and] I’d rather not even venture into that conversation.”
Video released by the NYPD over the weekend shows the creep sauntering down the street wearing ripped jeans and a dark blue hoodie.
Anyone with information on the violent crime is asked to call the NYPD’s Crime Stoppers Hotline at 1-800-577-TIPS (8477) or for Spanish, 1-888-57-PISTA (74782).
The public can also submit their tips by logging onto the Crime Stoppers website at https://crimestoppers.nypdonline.org/, or on X @NYPDTips.
