An 83-year-old who allegedly slashed two people with a machete — leaving a 5-inch gash in one man’s neck — during an argument at a raucous party in Williamsburg was walking around the place “like a samurai,” cops and one of the victims said.
“There was no altercation, no disagreement. I was actually watching a YouTube video on an iPad with my buddy, and all of a sudden I feel something hit me in the back of my head. And then a girl came out of the bathroom, and he hit her too,” Brian Espinal, 35, told The Post, adding he knew the elderly suspect from having seen him before at the “informal” basement social club on Scholes Street in Brooklyn where the attack occurred.
The attack was random, insisted Espinal, a film production assistant who was sporting a large bandage on his neck.
“He was always telling jokes, talking about being a Vietnam vet. He had no family. He had nobody,” Espinal said of the alleged assailant. “I think he was on some medication and maybe didn’t take it last night, because he was walking around like a samurai with his trench coat and this sword, a machete.”
Police said the elderly man was arguing with the woman, 28, and the younger man around 2 a.m. when he swung the long blade, slashing the woman in the forehead and the man in the neck, cops said.
“I didn’t see what happened after he hit me. I just went down. I didn’t know if he hit an artery. I didn’t know if I was gonna die,” said Espinal, who believes he might have been saved from a worse injury because he was wearing his hat backwards, with the machete hitting the bill of the hat.
The octogenarian was taken into custody at the scene, where the machete was recovered. His identification was pending charges, cops said.
The attacker was brought to Kings County Hospital for a cut to his hand that may have been self-inflicted, cops said.
The building where the knifing happened sits on a quiet street but it is known for raucous gambling parties, a neighbor said.
The neighbor, who asked to remain anonymous out of fear of retribution, said the building has been a problem for years.
“This is not the first time,” they said. “Every time we call the police, the police is coming and nothing. Every time it’s fight, every time we got problems here.”
The resident said there is constant noise from the basement parties.
“They fight, they throw bottles, they talking and talking,” the neighbor said. “It’s terrible. I don’t know exactly what’s happening down there. It’s illegal. It’s a big space, he got people playing cards there, other games.”
Police said the stabbing was the first time they went to the building in September, a spokesman said.
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