[ad_1]
SOHO, Manhattan – Police sources confirmed to PIX11 News the identity of the woman who, according to police, attacked the 14-year-old son of award-winning trumpeter Keyon Harrold.
Sources say Miya Ponsetto, a 22-year-old from Simi Valley, California, carried out the attack after falsely accusing the boy of stealing his cell phone.
The crime occurred on Saturday, December 26. Still, Ponsetto has not been officially identified or arrested.
On Friday, Brooklyn Borough President Eric Adams joined a group of black parents at a news conference at the New York City Police Headquarters in Lower Manhattan. They made their intentions very clear.
“We want an arrest,” Adams said. “We want this woman to be arrested and brought to justice.”
Adams, a former NYPD captain and currently a 2021 Democratic mayoral candidate, said he had joined the Real Dads Network for the press conference because he is also the black father of a black son.
Both Harrold and his teenage son are black.
Harrold recorded the meeting with Ponsetto on his cell phone. The video captures her demanding that the boy show her that his cell phone is not hers. Cell phone video has now been viewed millions of times on social media.
It happened around noon last Saturday when Harrold and his son exited an elevator from their room at the Arlo Hotel here, where they were guests. Cell phone video also captured the hotel manager asking to see the boy’s phone. The father tells his son in the video to refuse, because it is owned by the teenager.
In surveillance video of the incident, the woman is seen lashing out at the boy after he refuses to give her his property. She tackles him and throws him to the ground. He also scratched Harrold, while trying to protect his son. That’s it according to the New York Police Department, which also made the surveillance video publicly available and issued a digital search poster for the woman.
On Saturday, December 26, the woman in this video falsely accused an innocent 14-year-old teenager of stealing her cell phone. He then proceeded to physically attack him and fled the scene before the police officers arrived at the scene. pic.twitter.com/qtZZWetBWH
– Chief Rodney Harrison (@NYPDDetectives) December 31, 2020
However, the police are not officially releasing Ponsetto’s name.
“The female person has been positively identified and detectives are trying to locate her,” the NYPD said in a statement.
That wasn’t enough for Adams and the group of black parents.
“When a perpetrator or a person accused of a crime is a person of color,” Adams said, “there is an immediate description, ethnicity and identification. When it is not a person of color, there is a feeling of ‘Let’s be careful not to publish the information too quickly ‘”.
The woman fled the scene before officers arrived, the NYPD chief of detectives said earlier this week. He also said he could face charges of assault, grand theft, attempted robbery and stalking.
The woman’s cell phone ended up being handed over to her, shortly after the attack, by the driver of an Uber she had been in earlier that day, according to Harrold and other sources.
They also said that Ponsetto had left the hotel days before the incident.
“She should have been charged with trespassing, as well as the [other crimes]”Adams said.” Why has it taken so long? “
[ad_2]