A 13-year-old boy was slashed across the face during a verbal dispute outside 88-01 Queens Boulevard around 6:30 p.m. Thursday, and the attacker took off on foot before officers could make an arrest. The boy was rushed to a local hospital, where he is listed in stable condition, as the NYPD continues searching for whoever wielded the blade.
What Police Know So Far
According to FOX 5 New York, the teen was slashed across the face after getting into a verbal dispute with the suspect, who then fled the scene on foot. Police have not released what prompted the initial argument, nor have they said whether the boy and the suspect knew each other. No description of the attacker has been made public, and it remains unclear whether anyone has been arrested in connection with the incident.
The NYPD is asking the public to help identify the suspect and has urged anyone who recognizes him to contact the Crime Stoppers hotline. For now, investigators are relying on the community to fill in the gaps left by an attack that unfolded in broad daylight along one of Queens' busiest commercial corridors.
A Pattern of Slashings Across Queens
The Queens Boulevard attack comes less than two weeks after a similar slashing in Jamaica, where a 32-year-old man was allegedly cut across the face in an unprovoked attack. Per QNS, that victim was walking past a storefront at 149-21 Jamaica Ave. around 3:30 a.m. on Sept. 22 when he was confronted by a stranger and slashed across the face with a cutting instrument before the attacker ran off in an unknown direction. EMS took that victim to Jamaica Hospital Medical Center, where he was treated for a facial laceration and also listed in stable condition. Police in that case described the suspect as having a dark complexion and shoulder-length black hair, wearing a black jacket with white designs, black sweatpants with white stripes and black Nike Air Jordan sneakers — though no such description has been released for the Queens Boulevard attack.
The same QNS report notes that the 103rd Precinct, which covers Jamaica, had logged 585 felony assaults through Sept. 27 of this year, 38 more than the 547 recorded at the same point in 2025 — a 6.9% increase. The Queens Boulevard slashing happened in a different precinct, but the uptick reflects a borough-wide trend that has drawn scrutiny from crime analysts.
The Citywide Numbers Behind the Headlines
Zooming out, felony assault has become something of an outlier in New York City's broader crime picture. The city's overall major crime fell 5.6% in the first half of 2026, even as felony assault complaints ticked up 0.4% to 14,802 incidents, according to Vital City. Queens and Staten Island barely moved at all on the major-crime front during that stretch, the outlet reported, even as felony assault citywide sat 48% above prepandemic levels.
Other violent-crime categories told a more encouraging story over the same period: murders fell to 128 citywide in the first half of the year, the lowest count in the city's history and 34 fewer than in 2025, while shootings dropped to 322. Still, the persistence of felony assaults — and now a slashing involving a child — underscores why cases like the one outside 88-01 Queens Boulevard continue to rattle neighbors even as the city's headline crime statistics trend downward.
For now, the central questions in the Queens Boulevard case remain unanswered. Police have not released what sparked the dispute or whether the boy recognized his attacker, leaving the investigation open as the search for the suspect continues.
