John Jefferson
Inset: Gary Lansky (Detroit Police Department). Background: Saida Mashra talks with a reporter about the attack that left her with stitches to her neck (WXYZ).
A 73-year-old Michigan man is accused of slashing a 7-year-old girl’s neck with a pocketknife in a daytime attack at a park.
Gary Lansky was charged with assault with intent to murder and felonious assault in the attack on the girl, Saida Mashra.
The alleged attack happened on Tuesday at Lloyd H. Ryan Playground in Detroit, authorities said.
Lansky approached Saida as she was playing at the park, lifted her face and cut her throat with a pocketknife, the young victim told Detroit Fox affiliate WJBK.
“He just came out of nowhere and slid the knife on me,” said Saida, who suffered a cut that required stitches.
She screamed, kicked her attacker and ran home while the suspect fled.
A neighbor who heard the screaming told the ABC affiliate WXYZ that she immediately grabbed gauze pads to help stop the bleeding as the girl told her, “Oh, I’m going to die, and nobody is going to be here with me,” the neighbor told the station.
Police responded to the home at about 3:45 p.m. and found Saida being treated by medics for a cut to her throat before she was hospitalized.
Her mother, Sharhan, said her daughter is lucky to be alive, reported local CBS affiliate WWJ.
“They said that she’s lucky, she’s very lucky. It was really deep, the cut,” she said.
Lansky was arrested later that day.
Lansky’s wife told the Detroit Free Press her husband had a mental illness, without elaborating.
Although there was no immediate evidence the attack was motivated by hate, it prompted calls for a hate crime investigation.
“Regardless of the motive, this attack was a senseless act of violence that will impact the lives of Saida, her family, and all of the other children who were in the park that day,” CAIR-MI Executive Director Dawud Walid said in a statement. “While the charges faced by Garly Lansky are serious, we urge the Detroit Police Department and the Wayne County Prosecutor’s Office to conduct a comprehensive investigation into this matter to determine whether hate was a motivating factor in the attack.”
At Lansky’s arraignment on Thursday, he was given a $2 million cash/surety bond with a GPS tether and placed on house arrest, prosecutors said.
He is set to appear in court again on Monday.
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