NYC police pursue video leads in bar beating

3/12/2010 07:18:44 AM

NEW YORK – Security video has attracted some tips, but none so far have led police to the stranger who followed a woman into a bar restroom, savagely beating her and perhaps trying to sexually assault her after she rejected his advances.

The police security camera near the bar's entrance captured images of the man afterward walking down the sidewalk and looking at his hand — an indication it might have been injured during the attack. The department released the footage in hopes of identifying him, but said none of the resulting tips had panned out as of Friday.

The attack occurred around 2 a.m. Thursday at Social, a three-story bar and lounge on Eighth Avenue in midtown Manhattan where the 29-year-old victim, a nurse, had gone with a friend, authorities said.

The woman told police that she had rebuffed attempts by the man to dance with her, said police spokesman Paul Browne. When she went to the women's restroom on the second floor, he followed her and burst into a stall.

The man beat the victim until she was unconscious. Her friend later found her in the stall and called 911, believing she might have fallen.

The woman was hospitalized with a broken eye socket, broken jaw and other injuries. When she regained consciousness, she told hospital workers she had been attacked.

Browne said investigators think the man also might have tried to sexually assault the victim. The Associated Press generally doesn't name potential victims of sexual assault.

Police were interviewing bar employees to try to identify the assailant. A phone message left at the bar was not immediately returned.