David Paterson, the former New York governor, and his stepson were attacked and injured on New York City’s Upper East Side on Friday night, the city police department said.
Paterson, 70, and his stepson, Anthony Sliwa, 20, had been walking in the upscale neighborhood at about 8.30pm when they were attacked after a verbal altercation with five people, according to the police.
Paterson suffered minor injuries to his face and body, while Sliwa, son of Curtis Sliwa, founder of the anti-crime group the Guardian Angels and New York mayoral candidate, received minor injuries to his face.
“Anthony was able to hold them off because Governor Paterson is sight-challenged but the governor was in the middle of this, too, and they both stood their ground,” Curtis Sliwa told the New York Post. The elder Sliwa said he is “proud” of how his son, who is also a Guardian Angel, handled the incident.
Both were taken to a nearby hospital in stable condition. Police said Paterson, who served as New York’s first Black governor from 2008–2010 after Eliot Spitzer stepped down amid a prostitution scandal, is not believed to have been targeted in the assault.
Sean Darcy, a spokesperson for the former governor, told ABC News that the younger man had had “a previous interaction” with the five people.
Myles Miller, the managing editor of Bloomberg, posted on X that both men had been taken to the hospital as a precaution after they suffered some injuries “but were able to fight off their attackers” and police had not yet detained the suspected assailants.
Paterson’s spokesperson said the “governor’s only request is that people refrain from attempting to use an unfortunate act of violence for their own personal or political gain”.
Reports of the assault come at a tense time in the city around issues of street crime and subway safety. Next week, ex-marine Daniel Penny goes on trial for manslaughter and criminally negligent homicide for choking an unhoused man, Jordan Neely, on a subway train last year.
In that case, witnesses claimed that Neely, 30, had been threatening passengers, and millions of dollars have been donated to Penny’s defense fund. Others have said that Penny, then 24, acted as an overzealous vigilante, stirring memories of Bernhard Goetz, who shot four African American men on a subway train in 1984.
Penny has pleaded not guilty to the charges.
