Runner Stabbed on Brooklyn Waterfront Path Two Days Before the New York City Marathon

Katie Suarez, a 28-year-old from Gravesend, Brooklyn, was stabbed twice in the neck while running along the Shore Parkway Greenway in Bath Beach shortly after 8 p.m. on Friday. She is on life support at NYU Langone Hospital-Brooklyn, and police have made no arrests.

The NYPD released a photo of Suarez in running gear on Sunday and asked anyone who saw her between 7:56 and 8:12 p.m. on Friday, on the bike path beside the Belt Parkway between Bay 8th Street and Bay 17th Street, to contact detectives, WABC reported. Joseph Kenny, the department’s chief of detectives, told NBC New York that she was “still in very critical condition,” and he widened the appeal to drivers: “Anybody that was on the Belt Parkway Friday night.” Crime Stoppers is offering a reward, which WABC reported as up to $10,000 and FOX 5 as up to $3,200.

Police say the attack appears to have been random. Her phone and jewelry were still with her, so it does not look like a robbery, and investigators had not found surveillance video of the attack as of Monday, WABC reported. Divers, K-9 teams and drones have searched the path and the water beside it, and police have not released any description of the attacker.

Suarez works at the TD Bank branch in the Caesar’s Bay Shopping Center, on the waterfront, and left work at about 6:30 p.m. on Friday, according to an internal police report obtained by The New York Times. Her mother met her nearby and took her work clothes, and Suarez set off running along the water. Her father called her around 8 p.m., and she told him she was about half a mile away, the report says. When she did not turn up and did not answer when he rang again, he went down to the path to look for her and found her there.

Police sources told the New York Post that Suarez had been training for Sunday’s New York City Marathon. The Times reported that she was not registered for this year’s race, while FOX 5 said she had been scheduled to run it. She had raced in New York Road Runners events before, the Times reported, and ran a race in Prospect Park in March. “We were sad to hear of this horrible attack,” Crystal Howard, a spokeswoman for NYRR, said in a statement. “Our hearts are with her family and the running community.”

State Sen. Steve Chan has called for more lighting along the path. “They rebuilt that foot bridge coming across from 17th Ave so with that foot bridge they also ran new wires to this side. I know there’s going to be a couple lights on this side, but they need more,” Chan told WABC.

Attacks on women running alone have drawn national attention before. In August 2016, Karina Vetrano, 30, was killed while running on a path in Spring Creek Park in Queens, and a jury convicted a man of her murder in April 2019. In Memphis on Sept. 2, 2022, Eliza Fletcher, a 34-year-old kindergarten teacher, was abducted during a pre-dawn run and killed; Cleotha Abston pleaded guilty to her murder in October 2024 and was sentenced to life in prison without parole. In New York, Suarez’s stabbing came six days after a 39-year-old woman out on an evening run on the east side of Central Park was raped at knifepoint, police told the Times.

Police are asking anyone with information, including anyone with video from the area, to call Crime Stoppers at 1-800-577-TIPS (8477), or 1-888-57-PISTA (74782) in Spanish, or to submit a tip at crimestoppers.nypdonline.org.