The New York Police Department is looking for two women who allegedly assaulted an employee of the Aqua Wash Laundromat in the borough of Brooklyn after he asked them to wear masks in his business.
NYPD Crime Stoppers released surveillance footage from the East 98th Street laundromat that showed the alleged assault from June 8.
Police told Newsweek that the women in the video "punched [the employee, 69-year-old Eion Azore,] in the face and struck him in the head with a vase."
The video first shows an angle of the laundromat in which the two women can be seen walking up the aisle of washing machines heading toward the counter.
One woman is wearing black biker shorts, an orange and yellow patterned tank top and an orange bucket hat. The other woman wears a pink dress with fuzzy blue sandals and an emoji purse. An object that appears to be a face mask hangs by its earloop to the strap of the purse.
The surveillance video cuts to the woman in orange running after Azore. They round the corner of an aisle of washing machines when the woman is seen striking him over the head with a vase.
The vase shatters, and the impact sent Azore stumbling to the floor and into a dryer. She throws the remainder of the plant at the employee before walking toward the door.
When the Azore tries to get up, the woman in the pink dress comes into the camera's view, and she throws a hot pink comforter over him. As the second woman runs after her friend, she drops something that appears to be a knife. She comes back to pick it up before exiting the laundromat.
Azore was taken to the Brookdale Hospital by EMS to be treated for wounds on his head. He needed 12 stitches to close the lacerations, according to police.
Azore was working the overnight shift at the laundromat when he was allegedly attacked. He told the local news station that the women wanted to come into the business to use the ATM, and they were not planning to do laundry.
Reportedly, Azore told the women that they needed to wear face masks in order to come into the laundromat. When the woman went to use the ATM anyway, he stood in front of the machine, at which time the woman allegedly assaulted him.
The NYPD Crime Stoppers is offering a reward for information on the two unidentified women who took off in an unknown direction from the laundromat.
