The New York Police Department has identified the man it suspects hit Hollywood actor Steve Buscemi while he was walking in New York City last Wednesday.
Police are searching for Clifton Williams, 50, who they believe punched Buscemi in the face, leaving him bloody and bruised.
The 66-year-old Brooklyn native was walking on Third Avenue near East 27th Street in Kips Bay on Manhattan’s east side at 11:48 a.m. Wednesday, police said.
Williams allegedly approached the actor and suddenly attacked him outside 369 Third Avenue and then fled. Witnesses said Buscemi actually chased the man who assaulted him.
Williams is still being sought by the NYPD, the New York Daily News reported Tuesday night.
Hollywood actor Steve Buscemi was punched in the face in a random attack on the streets of New York City.
Buscemi, 66, was walking along Third Avenue in Kips Bay, east of Manhattan, when he was violently attacked.
Police released a surveillance image of the alleged attacker this week and have now identified the man as 50-year-old Clifton Williams.
Buscemi was taken to Bellevue Hospital, where he was treated for bruising, swelling and bleeding in his left eye.
“Steve Buscemi was assaulted in midtown Manhattan, another victim of a random act of violence in the city,” his publicist said.
“He is doing well and appreciates everyone’s well wishes, although it is incredibly sad for everyone that this happened to them while they were walking the streets of New York.”
A worker who was nearby when the assault occurred told the New York Post: “I saw he was with a woman, and then around the corner of the window I saw him trip and fall backwards.”
“He immediately got up and ran in the opposite direction,” they added. “I didn’t see who hit him.”
Police on Monday released a surveillance image of the alleged attacker, who was wearing a dark baseball cap, blue T-shirt, black pants and white sneakers.
Buscemi grew up in New York and was a firefighter in Brooklyn before quitting in the 1980s to pursue an acting career.
He returned to his old firehouse hours after the 9/11 attacks and remained at the World Trade Center site for days, sifting through the rubble.
Buscemi, 66, was walking along Third Avenue in Kips Bay, east of Manhattan.
The award-winning actor has a career spanning four decades and is best known for his roles in the HBO series Boardwalk Empire and films such as ‘Fargo’ and ‘Reservoir Dogs.’
While working on the film Domestic Disturbance in Wilmington, North Carolina, in 2001, Buscemi was the victim of another brutal assault.
The actor intervened in a bar fight after two local men reportedly got into a fight with his co-star Vince Vaughn and screenwriter Scott Rosenberg.
According to police, Buscemi was stabbed several times, above the eye and in the jaw, throat and arm. He was treated at a local emergency room and released.
“The situation could have been life-threatening,” a source told Entertainment Weekly, which reported that the star had returned home to New York to recover and undergo plastic surgery on her injuries.
Buscemi’s assault on May 8 comes after his Boardwalk Empire co-star Michael Stuhbarg was also randomly attacked while in New York earlier this year.
Stuhlbarg, 55, was approached seemingly at random by a homeless man on the Upper East Side on Sunday night.
Stuhbarg, who played gangster Arnold Rothstein on the show, was out jogging near Central Park when he was attacked by a homeless man wielding a rock.
The actor was near East 90th and East Drive on the night of March 31 when Xavier Israel, 27, threw a rock at his head, hitting him in the back of the head.
The 55-year-old man suffered “minor injuries” and was seen on camera chasing Israel to the Russian consulate on East 91st Street, where police officers stationed outside detained the assailant.
Other celebrities have been targets of random attacks on the streets of the Big Apple in recent years, including comedian Rick Moranis and reality star Bethenny Frankel.
Bethenny Frankel says she was randomly beaten in New York City a couple of months ago; The reality star, 53, made the revelation in the comments section of a Tik Toker (right) that she said she was randomly hit in New York City.
Frankel, 53, revealed that she had been randomly hit a few months ago and described the incident in the comments section of a TikToker who also claimed she had been randomly hit.
‘This is crazy because it happened to me a few months ago but I was embarrassed to say it. I was at the UWS. [Upper West Side]. “I was recording a video of a bakery,” he wrote in the comments section via Page sixwhich he has since removed.
There have been a series of assaults on women in New York recently, and Page Six reported in March that at least 25 women had posted on TikTok in just a few months to say it had happened to them.
These random punching attacks in New York City appeared to be part of a disturbing trend called the knockout game, where strangers punch random strangers in New York City with the intention of “beating them unconscious.”
According to the most recent crime statistics from the New York Police Department, the number of serious assaults recorded in the first quarter of this year increased 3.8 percent, from 6,159 to 6,390.
The number of assaults in March also increased by 5.5 percent compared to last year.