A man who allegedly stabbed two tourists at New York City’s Grand Central Terminal on Christmas Day was released by a judge weeks prior to the incident, according to a report by The New York Post.

Steven Hutcherson, an African-American man aged 36, was arrested by city law enforcement authorities for allegedly assaulting a civilian in the Bronx in November, according to the Post. Even as prosecutors sought to have him committed to a psychiatric institution, he was conditionally released on Dec. 12 by Judge Matthew V. Grecio, an appointee of Democratic Mayor Eric Adams to the New York City Criminal Court.

“If the judge had only held this individual accountable two innocent tourists, children, may have had a Merry Christmas instead of an ‘attempted murderous’ Christmas. Now this is [their] permanent view of New York City — almost being murdered,” a law enforcement source told the Post. Hutcherson allegedly stabbed two teenage sisters, aged 14 and 16, who were visiting the United States from Paraguay, while screaming anti-Caucasian slurs at them.

“I want all the white people dead,” Hutcherson allegedly yelled.

Hutcherson, who also goes by the name Esteban Estonia Asues, has a long criminal record, having been arrested over 17 times in the last 20 years, according to the Post, and has been the subject of at least six domestic violence complaints by a woman he has allegedly stalked for over a year. He has had at least two police-initiated psychiatric evaluations at St. Barnabas Hospital in the Bronx.

In July, he allegedly walked into a precinct of the New York Police Department in the Bronx and dared police to arrest him and confiscate his dagger and switchblade, for which he pled guilty to misdemeanor weapons charges, the Post reported.

In October, Hutcherson was incarcerated twice — for causing $81,000 in damages at Bergdorf Goodman’s flagship department store on Fifth Avenue in Manhattan, and for an unspecified act of “second-degree menacing,” for which he served 15 days in jail, the Post reported. On Dec. 12, Hutcherson’s hearing before Greico concerned his alleged threatening of a Muslim man for his white employer.

“Why are you working for white people? I’m going to kill this man,” Hutcherson allegedly told the victim, Yussif Abdullahi, a 46-year-old man who immigrated to the U.S. from Ghana in 2008, the Post reported. “I’m gonna shoot you. I don’t care what kind of green card the government gave you. Open your mouth and say something. I will shoot you right now.”

“They shouldn’t have let him out [of jail],” Abdullahi told the Post. A spokesperson for the court told the Post that Grecio ordered “individual counseling” as the condition for his discharge to assess Hutcherson’s “underlying anger issues.”

Hutcherson is currently being held without bail and faces charges of attempted murder, assault, weapons possession and endangering the welfare of a child, which have been classified as hate crimes, the Post reported. One of his victims was hospitalized for a collapsed lung.

Arjun Singh on December 28, 2023