Suspect in Union Square shove attack on 85-year-old is bipolar, had stopped taking medication: mom 50%
By Kerry Burke35% Emma Seiwell50% Colin Mixson63%
6/4/2026, 10:17:28 AM
BS Summary: This article contains 21 faulty reasoning types, including Appeal to Emotion, Hasty Generalization, and Anecdotal, with Negativity Bias as the most egregious example at 28.5% saturation with 198 hits. Analysis detected 1,290 faulty-reasoning hits from 695 analyzed words, generating a BS Score of 50.1% and a BS Rank of 50% (11,021 of 21,887 articles). This article is better (less manipulative) than 50.40% of the article peer group.
The mother of a woman arrested for critically injuring an 85-year-old great-grandmother in an unprovoked shove near Union Square Park in Manhattan says her daughter has bipolar disorder and stopped taking her medication before the assault.
Paris Valentine, 29, is being held without bail on a felony assault charge for allegedly pushing the elderly victim face-first onto the sidewalk Monday.
At her arraignment the next day, a lawyer for Valentine, Rosa Isabel Valiente, requested unspecified medical attention for her client but did not mention mental illness.
“She was getting some treatment for being bipolar.
She was on medication but she’s not on it anymore,” the suspect’s mother, Loretta Valentine, told the Daily News.
“I just don’t know why she did this.
She’s a good person with a kind heart.
I really just don’t know what happened.”
Mental illness has played a role in an array of unprovoked attacks across NYC, including a recent string of assaults on elderly victims by strangers.
A 76-year-old retired kindergarten teacher who died after being shoved down a Chelsea subway staircase with no warning from behind is among the examples.
In that case, the accused had undergone a psychiatric evaluation at Bellevue Hospital earlier in the day before being released.
In the most recent episode, the victim was stepping off an MTA bus near her home when she was violently shoved to the ground, cops said.
The victim fractured her skull on the sidewalk in the attack and is currently in a medically induced coma at Bellevue Hospital.
She may never recover, her family said.
“It’s just so heartbreaking,” the victim’s 68-year-old daughter said.
“She is an incredible woman who loved the city and this is what the city gave back to her.”
Valentine's mother claimed her daughter, a full-time student studying psychology at CUNY, only shoved the elderly woman after the victim elbowed her.
“She had her book and was studying,” Loretta said of her daughter.
“She was in the park.”
There is no mention of any interaction between the two in the NYPD's account nor was it raised in court during Valentine's arraignment.
Valentine's lawyer told the judge Valentine is a hard-working student from a good family who “feels really terrible” about the attack.
Prosecutors say she never said a word or looked back after the shove.
Prior to the assault, Valentine had been arrested at least three times for a string of clashes with residents at a Bedford-Stuyvesant, Brooklyn, apartment building where she lived until she was evicted for not paying rent last December, police sources said.
The three arrests were ultimately dismissed and sealed, the sources said.
During an earlier visit, another officer tells Valentine, “I'm not gonna need a warrant.
I didn't need a warrant last time.
We'll take this door down and drive you straight to the hospital.
Your behavior is erratic and a danger to others.”
Valentine belligerently refuses to open her door each time.
At one point she can be heard screaming, “If you don’t have a warrant get the f— away from my door!”
The most recent arrest was on March 9, 2025, when she was accused of confronting a 28-year-old male neighbor in the building on Hart St. near Marcy Ave. with a Taser in her hand.
She turned the Taser on during the confrontation, making her neighbor uneasy, police sources said.
Like the others, that charge was eventually dismissed.
Valentine was back to living with her mother in Flatbush prior to Monday's assault, her lawyer said during the suspect’s arraignment for the Union Square attack.
Housing court documents show that she at one point owed more than $83,000 in back rent for the apartment she was evicted from.
The shove victim has two daughters, five grandchildren and at least one great-grandchild, according to the conductor of the Yiddish Philharmonic Chorus, of which she was a member.
“She is at the moment the senior citizen at the chorus, the oldest person at 85,” said conductor Binyumen Schaechter.
“She's beloved by everyone.
This year, at 85, was the first year she had a solo coming up.”
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69%flagged-word coverageLoretta Valentine
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