Resident is slashed in the face after confronting raver in Washington Square Park about noise

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Washington Square Park descended into chaos overnight Friday when a woman was left bloodied and bruised after being trampled on by terrified crowds trying to flee a man armed with a large knife and a taser.   

The incident unfolded at around 12.40 am Saturday morning when Jason McDermott, 42, began waving a taser in the direction of a group of people who were gathered inside the historic park for another night of late-night partying, the NYPD told DailyMail.com.

Police said McDermott was also in possession of a large knife at the time.   

Partygoers, who have descended on the park for nightly raves in recent weeks, were sent into a panic and ran for safety from the suspect.

In the chaos, one 43-year-old woman, who has not been named, was knocked over and trampled by the fleeing crowd. 

DailyMail.com photos show the woman sat on the ground with blood pouring from her face following the incident. A man was seen handcuffed and being led away by police.

Police said the woman was transported to Bellevue hospital in a stable condition with lacerations, contusions and abrasions. 

McDermott was arrested without incident and was charged Saturday morning with menacing, reckless endangerment and criminal possession of a weapon. 

The NYPD said there were no other injuries from the incident and the park remained open for the rest of the night – long after the midnight curfew.  

Witnesses on the scene initially said the woman had been slashed in the face during an argument. 

They said they believed she was a local resident who had entered the park to complain about the loud noise, and was attacked during an altercation with a reveler. 

It is not clear if the woman or the suspect were among the partygoers in the park when the incident took place.  

Hundreds of revelers had descended on the park again Friday night for the latest in a string of parties which has left local residents in the affluent area fuming and the police apparently powerless to step in.  

The NYPD had said this week its officers would enforce a midnight closure time after the rowdy late-night events saw stabbings and brawls, and sparked complaints from well-heeled neighbors. There have also been allegations of drug taking by revelers.   

NYPD Commissioner Dermot Shea said on Wednesday that police officers will be ‘enforcing the closing…if requested’ to do so by the Parks Department.

On Wednesday, Rodney Harrison, the NYPD’s Chief of Department, the highest ranking uniformed officer on the force, told reporters at City Hall that fliers would be handed out to park visitors reminding them to clear out by the midnight closing time.

On Monday, mayor Bill De Blasio downplayed the violence and chaos at Washington Square Park in recent weeks, telling reporters that he believes the situation will resolve itself ‘naturally.’

It came as liberal residents who live nearby told how they are afraid of asking for more cops to tackle the daily after-dark raves because they don’t want to be viewed as less progressive.

New Yorkers living around the historic Manhattan park told the New York Times they feel it is ‘time to draw the line’ on the escalating parties which they claim have left many ‘too afraid to go inside.’

However, they admitted their desire to rein in the revelry clashes with their attitudes toward policing at a time when liberals are calling for greater police reform in the wake of the cop killing of George Floyd. 

Their concerns come as a professor questioned the motives behind some of the complaints about the noisy park raves, saying they are targeting young people of color.  

‘Is it really just about noise? What is it about really?’ Setha Low, director of the Public Space Research Group at the Graduate Center at CUNY, told the Times. 

‘This is another old-fashioned conflict where one scenario is that you want your neighborhood to appropriate the park and take care of it. On the other hand, it is a public space resource for the city.’   

The local residents in the rich, elite Greenwich Village neighborhood are largely white while the partygoers are typically more diverse and have traveled to attend the parties from other parts of the city.  

The public park in the heart of the Big Apple has been a growing source of tension in recent weeks.

With bars and restaurants facing tight restrictions over the last year due to the pandemic, it transformed into a popular party destination. 

Now, as the parties and reports of crime increase – and COVID-19 restrictions have lifted – residents and ravers are coming to blows.

On the one side, young revelers say the park is public property. They question why they cannot use the space to enjoy parties and why the wealthy Greenwich Village homeowners nearby should have the power to decide who has access to it. 

On the other side, residents claim the park has become a site of increased drug use and violence, leaving them scared to walk around the area and left grappling with the noise later into the night.  

One resident whose family has lived in the same house around the park for almost half a century told the Times the park resembled ‘a war’ some nights. 

‘What pains me is that this park is for everyone, and now some people are too afraid to go inside,’ said Erika Sumner, who is the head of the neighborhood association the Washington Square Association.  

Another resident Carmen Gonzalez said she was concerned about rising drug use after her young daughter picked up a used syringe from the park.  

‘Once the sun comes down, the park changes drastically. It’s time to draw the line,’ she said. 

However partygoers told the Times the park is a place to ‘chill out’ away from the violence and police hostility in some other parts of the city.  

This is the park you come to chill out,’ said Edith Molina from the Bronx. 

‘In the Bronx, you have gang violence, and police run you out of parks. Here, police don’t do anything.’ 

David ‘Shaman’ Ortiz, who organizes parties at the park, has branded critics of the noisy raves ‘Karens’ and ‘Kevins.’  

In an effort to tackle the simmering tensions and find solutions for both sides, a community meeting was held Wednesday.     

Hundreds of locals joined the meeting at Lady of Pompeii Church to complain that the park ‘has become a drug den’ and a ‘free-for-all’.  

Several hundred turned up to air their grievances, with around 100 turned away from the meeting.  

Meanwhile, protestors outside argued against an increased police presence at the park and claimed residents were just upset because ‘it’s bad optics for them [the white people] to see black and brown people’ at the park. 

Parties broke out at the park again Thursday night, though the scenes were much quieter than recent times. 

People were seen dancing together, fire eaters performed to the crowd and some appeared to be selling alcohol from portable coolers. 

The NYPD had imposed a 10pm weekend curfew on the park two weeks ago following complaints from residents. 

This sparked clashes between police and the partygoers that night, with 23 people arrested and eight cops injured in a night of unrest on June 5.

The midnight closing time was restored after police on Saturday lifted a 10pm curfew that was prompted by local residents who said the crowds were making noise late at night while also making the area unsafe. 

The curfew was then lifted, restoring its normal midnight cut-off time.

Since then, cops have taken a hands-off approach to enforcing the curfew, with revelers partying on well into the night. 

Last Saturday, the park turned somewhat chaotic with two people stabbed, a man beaten and mugged of his phone and a 77-year-old cook at a nearby diner attacked.   

The violence in Washington Square Park comes as the NYPD struggled under a surge in violent crime in 2021.

Felony assaults are up eight percent for the first six months of 2021, compared to the same period last year, while rapes are up by 3 percent. 

NYPD data shows shootings in the Big Apple have increased by 64 percent year-on-year, while murders are up 13 percent.

The numbers are disturbing in themselves, but the violence has intensified and taken place in public places, like parks and subways, and in front of witnesses and surveillance cameras. 

Earlier this week, former NYPD commissioner Bill Bratton warned American cities, including New York City, are in for a ‘very, long dangerous summer’ as murder rates have skyrocketed 

And there aren’t any short- or long-term answers, Bratton told CNBC‘s Shepard Smith on Monday. 

‘Unlike the last crime epidemic that took decades to build up to the early ’90s, this one has occurred, literally, overnight,’ Bratton said. 

‘It’s like the virus, it’s literally, out of nowhere, and so solutions are not immediately apparent.’ 

Bratton, who earned the nickname ‘supercop’ for helping clean up the streets of New York City and Los Angeles, issued his warning on Monday.

In May, Governor Andrew Cuomo called the surge in violent crime a ‘major problem’ and said unless the NYPD gets a handle on it soon, the city would become undesirable.    

‘New Yorkers don’t feel safe and they don’t feel safe because the crime rate is up. It’s not that they are being neurotic or overly sensitive – they are right.’ he said.