By New York Post (U.S.) | Created at 2026-07-24 17:40:43 | Updated at 2026-07-24 18:38:21
59 minutes ago
Shocked neighbors of the nut suspected of attacking two Upper West Side men described him Friday as “lonely’’ but “super cordial’’ — as cops ramped up their probe into the possible hate crime.
“Never displayed anything,’’ said a resident who only identified himself as Tony J, 54, at the Amsterdam Avenue apartment building near West 88th Street in Manhattan — referring to suspected attacker Raul Morales, 51.
“That’s why when I seen him yesterday coming out the building in handcuffs, I was like, ‘What the f–k is he locked up for?
Raul Morales is supected in the stabbing. NY Post“It blew my mind.
“He was always nice. he’s like, never no problem,’’ said Tony, adding he’d seen Morales at the building for years. “He was never a head case, and he didn’t display no mental problems or nothing like that.
“Every time I see him, he was always, ‘Hey, how you doing?’ Super, super cordial. … That’s why if he had a mental break, I have not the slightest idea.
Moshe Yezhak Grunhaus was stabbed in the attack. Facebook / Lidia Lander“But you never know what goes through people’s minds. It’s New York City for you.”
Another building resident, Carlos Ramos, 73, said he’d seen Morales around on and off for a few years and only really knew he went outside more in the summer — but was equally shocked at the notion that his neighbor was Thursday’s attacker.
Morales, 51, is believed to have yelled, “Allahu Akbar!,’’ or “God is greater!’’ in Arabic during the separate screwdriver and knife attacks on a Jewish New Yorker in a yarmulke and an Asian man.
“I don’t think he knows what it means to be racist” because “there are a lot of Jewish communities here,’’ Ramos said.
“Let me tell you. The Jewish people that live around here? They mind their own business,’’ he said.
As for Morales, “he was a lonely person all the time. Lonely. I see him alone.”
The neighbors spoke as cops were executing a search warrant on Morales apartment in the building, where he was dragged out of after Thursday’s assault.
He was custody but had yet to be charged as authorities pushed to gather more evidence from the warrant — as well as scour for video footage of the attacks — to try to bolster the charges they are sure to bring against him even with his possible mental illness, including involving the potential hate crime, law-enforcement sources said.
Morales previously did two years in state prison on drug charges in the mid-1990s, sources said.
He had at least two drug-possession arrests under his belt. He also has five prior sealed arrests, sources said.
