A 75-year-old woman who was randomly assaulted outside Macy’s Herald Square last month said she’s relieved her alleged attacker is finally behind bars — but still has nightmares about the unprovoked beatdown and rarely leaves home.
“I prayed he would get caught,” Jeannette Smalls told The Post Tuesday about suspect Anthony Kwamel, who was charged with assault this week in the cowardly June 10 attack.
“I still have nightmares about him,” she said.
Smalls, a lifelong New Yorker, was leaving the iconic store with her walker at around 1:15 p.m. that day when the deranged brute randomly shoved her to the ground and kicked her multiple times at Sixth Avenue and West 34th Street.
“New York is not safe at all,” said Smalls, who was born in Harlem and has lived in lower Manhattan since she was a baby.
“If you have a walker, you’re fair game,” the septuagenarian added. “The elderly are being preyed upon. It’s gotten worse in New York in the past two years.”
Smalls said she was crossing the street when the unhinged shirtless man jumped her from behind.
“He kicked me once in the leg and I landed on my back,” she recalled.
“He kicked me in the street, right in the middle of traffic on 34th Street,” Small said. “He took my walker and threw it away. He took my vitamins.”
She added: “He was coming back to get me when a stranger put him in a chokehold. I was so relieved to see that.”
Smalls said she hit her head during the attack. She was treated at Mount Sinai West Hospital hospital for minor injuries after the incident — but said she’s been afraid to leave her house since.
“I only go across the street to the store to get my groceries and then I come straight home,” she said Monday.
The suspect — who was shirtless at the time — ran off after the unprovoked attack, but was caught on surveillance camera.
“The way he looked at me with those eyes, his eyes were so scary,” Smalls said. “He was like some kind of zombie. He’s definitely mental.”
Kwamel, 21, was awaiting arraignment in Manhattan Criminal Court on Tuesday.
Prior to his arrest late Monday, he had been living in a Manhattan men’s shelter.
Police said he has two prior arrests from last year for assault and menacing.