A mother was comfortably sitting on a New York park bench and enjoying bonding time while breastfeeding her 6-month old daughter, when a strange man approached her. He was after something specific that he couldn’t resist, and it ended up with her on the ground seconds later, as he went after what he wanted.
It was just after 5:30 p.m. last Friday, when 39-year-old Elena Sobina sat down to feed her baby Kelly one last time before they left Fort Tryon Park in beautiful Manhattan. Her infant had just nodded off when the new mom felt someone breathing down her neck. A savage of a man had come up behind her when she was looking at her phone and not paying attention, while still embracing her sleeping baby.
It appeared as if he was on a mission when the mother was in that most vulnerable moment, and he wasn’t going to stop until he got what he wanted, which was exactly what he did. “Someone was standing behind me — I could feel it,” Elena said, as reported by New York Daily News. But the terrifying scenario took an immediate turn for the worse, when the man knocked her to the ground, causing the baby to fall from her arms.
Face down on the ground, guarding her child with her own body from this predator, Elena didn’t hold back. Facing the fear head on with the man’s knife in her face, Elena pleaded with him to take whatever he wanted, but leave her and her baby alone. Little Kelly was bleeding from the mouth by this point, from an injury caused when her sweet face hit the ground.
“I was screaming, ‘Please, please, take the bag with the money!’ The bag was hanging on the stroller, and I was crawling away from him with Kelly,” Elena said. “I thought he would kill me.”
The brave mother didn’t stop screaming, in hopes passersby would hear her and come save them. Nobody came to the rescue, and the thief took her up on the offer to take what he wanted, just so long as he spared her and the baby. The sick assailant, later identified as 31-year-old Juan Garcia, took advantage of this vulnerable mother and stole her bag from the stroller, Pix11 reported.
As her attacker fled, Elena got up and put her baby in the stroller, and she began chasing after him. A good Samaritan heading her direction intervened and called the cops on her behalf, since Garcia had stolen her cell phone, which proved to be key in tracking him down and arresting the depraved crook.
Police found the criminal, who happened to have a lengthy record, that just got longer with charges of robbery, criminal possession of a weapon, endangering the welfare of a child, and grand larceny, after this twisted little stunt he pulled on a mom holding her baby. With him locked up but aware there are others out there, Elena refuses to let these criminals make her a victim again. She plans to return to the park she loves with her daughter and carry on in spite of this assailant.
It’s a new level of depravity to attack a mother breastfeeding a sleeping infant, just for a few bucks in her stroller. Clearly this criminal went after her because of her vulnerability and compromised position in that moment. For that reason, he deserves to be punished to the furthest extent of each crime he’s been charged with. He literally has no soul to be able to do such a thing and is capable of worse if he can bring himself to do this.