A brave seven-year-old girl had her throat slit by an old man – and is now sharing the story in an interview.
Saida Mashrash, 7, was playing at Detroit’s Ryan Park around 3:45 p.m. Tuesday, police said. The innocent girl wasn’t worried at all when she saw a man walking towards her.
‘I was playing and then I saw like a man’ Saida told WXYZ Detroit“I said ‘hello’ to him.”
That courtesy didn’t give Gary Lansky, 73, a break, who authorities say then grabbed the girl’s head and pulled out a pocket knife.
“And he just raised my head and slid the knife to my throat,” Saida told the station on Thursday.
The brave girl said she gave her attacker a “medium hard” kick and ran away before he could hurt her further.
She ran home from the playground, blood dripping down the few blocks, with her grandmother behind her. The family’s neighbors say they heard the little girl’s screams and jumped into action.
Donna Mockbil and her son live next door to Saida and came to the sick girl’s aid.
“She says, ‘oh I’m going to die and no one will be here with me,’” Mockbil told reporters, adding, “I started getting tears in my eyes.”
First responders took Saida to a local hospital where she received 20 stitches in her throat. They will be removed in a week.
“They said she was lucky,” said her mother Amira Sharhan tells CBS Detroit‘She’s very lucky. It was really deep, the cut.
“Out of all the kids, he came up to her, like why her,” Sharhan added, “it’s unbelievable. I don’t know how to actually explain it.”
Gary Lansky was taken into custody and is charged with assault with intent to murder and assault, according to authorities. His family tells investigators they believe he was experiencing a mental health crisis.
The Wayne County Prosecutor’s Office says there is no evidence the act was a hate crime, but the Michigan chapter of the Council of American Islamic Relations is calling for it to be investigated as such.
Lansky is being held on $2 million bail and is scheduled for sentencing on October 16.
