Suspect nabbed in Upper West Side slashing of Danish tourist after mom IDs him to NYPD

A suspect was busted Thursday in the slashing of a Danish tourist on the Upper West Side after his mother identified him to cops, NYPD sources said Thursday.

Cops recovered surveillance footage of the suspect wearing a T-shirt and shorts. After they released the footage to the media, 25-year-old Joshua Zinberg’s mother came forward, telling police they were looking for her son, sources said.

Zinberg lives with his parents in an apartment building just around the corner from where the attack took place.

Cops in the 20th Precinct’s Public Safety Team found Zinberg in his car on the Upper West Side about 1 a.m. Thursday, taking him to custody without incident. He is charged with attempted murder, assault and weapon possession.

The suspect spat at news reporters and photographers when he was led in handcuffs out of the precinct stationhouse Thursday afternoon to appear in Manhattan Criminal Court.

“That’s for all of you,” he said to the gathered journalists. “Do it for the clicks!”

“You guys don’t know s–t,” he said after a reporter shouted a question about his mother turning him in.

A relative in Zinberg’s apartment declined to comment, saying their attorney told the family not to speak to press.

The 55-year-old victim, visiting from Denmark, was attacked on W. 86th St. near Columbus Ave. at about 10:20 a.m. Wednesday, cops said. He is a former professional soccer player, ABC7 Eyewitness News says.

Zinberg has no criminal record, police sources said. But ABC7 Eyewitness News reports he’s had a handful of prior run-ins with police.

A man who works in the area told the Daily News he had a fight with Zinberg last year over a repair he was supposed to make in the suspect’s family’s apartment.

“He got too upset and was really complaining too much and he wants to come over to me and to fight with me,” the man recalled. “I didn’t pay attention. I call over tenants to calm him down … I knew that he had something wrong with him.”

Zinberg stormed off but the man was afraid he was going to come back to escalate things.

“I left because I didn’t want any fight,” the man said. “After that I see him growing up more and getting a job and working. He used to say hello to me, talking to me normally.”

“The police came last night and asked me about if I recognized that person,” he added. “I said, ‘Yes, that’s a young kid that I had some argument with him last year.”

After the 2023 quarrel Zinberg’s father apologized, saying his son “needs his medicine,” the man said.

“His parents are very nice,” the man said. “They are probably trying to do their best for him.”

The man was surprised to learn of the slashing.

“I don’t know if they had an argument or he was (having) a bad day, who knows?” he said. “Maybe they look straight at him and he react. But I didn’t expect him to react like that.”

According to police, the assailant came up behind the victim — who was walking with two companions — and slashed him from the right ear, along the right cheek and down to his neck.

“F— you, guys!” he reportedly shouted at the trio before running off.

The victim’s friends, along with the super of a nearby building, aided him, giving him a shirt, towel and a rag to apply to his wound, before a nurse who lives in a nearby building gave the victim an ice pack.

“He was bleeding so badly,” the super said. “He sat there and didn’t say anything. He was losing feeling in his face. He was in shock.”

The victim was taken by medics to Mount Sinai Morningside in stable condition.

Police said the attack was unprovoked. It was not immediately clear what set Zinberg off.

A surveillance video of the incident acquired by the Daily News shows three tall men, two of them blond, walking by. Soon after they pass out of the video frame, a young man clutching a blade is seen running furiously after them and then he, too, disappears out of the frame. The attacker then reappears in the video frame, appears to shout something angrily back toward the victim and the other two men, and then runs off in the direction from which he came.

The bloody assault comes on the heels of a horrific random triple murder that played out on Manhattan’s streets earlier in the week. On Monday, three people were stabbed to death in the string of unprovoked knife attacks, which spanned from Chelsea to Kips Bay to near the United Nations. Ramon Rivera, 51, has been charged with murder in each of those three attacks.

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