A 35-year-old homeless man was charged with assault after allegedly randomly attacking a six-year-old boy was on a Kew Gardens street on Thursday.
The boy's grandfather told WCBS 2, "You heard that scream, you knew something serious was going on, it’s a kid that was picked up and smashed to the ground, nothing less than that."
According to police, the boy was with his parents near Metropolitan Avenue and Lefferts Boulevard when a man suddenly picked him up and "threw him to the ground causing facial injuries." Officers were called to the scene and apprehended Laurance Gendreau.
The boy was taken to Cohen Children's Medical Center. He is in critical condition with hemorrhaging to the brain and a contusion to the head.
Naftali Portnoy, the grandfather, said to WCBS 2 that the boy and his older brother were waiting for pizza. Portnoy added that he followed the suspect and called 911, "He did say ‘I’m bipolar’ his first words were ‘I’m bipolar’ and something about ‘kill the kid,’ wanted to kill the kid."
Gendreau was also charged with harassment and acting in a manner injurious to a child less than 17 years old. The incident comes in the wake of some Queens residents' vitriolic objections to housing homeless men in their neighborhood as well as the brutal murders of four homeless men, allegedly by another homeless man.
