The attacker who bashed a cello player in the head with a metal bottle inside a Midtown subway station has been nabbed, according to police.
Amira Hunter, 23, was arraigned Thursday on an assault charge in Manhattan Criminal Court, where she was put on supervised release and directed to go to a homeless shelter.
She allegedly attacked Iain Forrest, a 29-year-old medical student who was playing his electric cello as part of the MTA’s Music Under New York program, in the Herald Square stop the evening of Feb. 13.
The unprovoked assault, which left Forrest convinced the subway system is too dangerous for him to continue performing, was caught on video taken by straphangers who were watching him perform “Titanium” by Sia.
The footage shows Forrest playing in front of a crowd as the attacker comes up behind him, grabs the musician’s metal water bottle from the floor and bashes him in the head with it.
The attacker, who wore a mask to cover her face, was leaning nonchalantly against a pillar before rushing toward Forrest, cops said.
The victim hunched over in pain after being struck as the attacker ran off. He was not badly hurt.
“I couldn’t quite get my bearings and it was only when I saw my metal water bottle rolling around on the ground and I saw the crowd’s face in awe, disbelief and shock that I realized, I think someone just smashed the back of my head,” Forrest said several days after the attack.
Hunter lives in East New York, Brooklyn, and has seven prior arrests, according to cops. Four of the arrests involve domestic violence, two are for petty larceny and the most recent one, last October, is for grand larceny and involves shoplifting, police said.
Her Thursday court appearance saw an odd outburst.
When Judge Marva Brown asked the prosecution if it would seek an order of protection against Hunter, an ADA said one wasn’t needed since the defendant and victim were strangers.
“What the f—? We’re not strangers,” Hunter exclaimed, prompting the judge to tell her to quiet down.
The homeless suspect, who has a face tattoo of a horseshoe, was told to report to a social worker at her new shelter.
For his part, Forrest previously said the attack, which came in the wake of a prior assault in Times Square last May, convinced him the subway system, as “exciting” as it is, is too dangerous a place for him to perform.
“It does kind of break my heart that this is something that has to stop indefinitely, barring some sort of systemic change with protection for performances in the subway,” he said.
The cellist, whose nickname is “Eyeglasses,” nearly pulled the plug on underground performances when he was beaten and choked in last May’s incident by a man who tried to steal his money.
That suspect, Rendell Robinson, 40, was charged with robbery. He is being held on bail.
“I’ve got a wife,” Forrest said. “I’ve got a family and friends that care about me and I don’t know what they would do if I was gone.”
Hunter, who was arrested Wednesday, shed no light on the disturbing incident.
Asked why she attacked the cellist, she simply said, “I don’t know why.”
Her defense lawyer declined to comment.
