US News

KID VICIOUS NAILED

Cops yesterday nabbed the savage young punk who was caught on tape brutally beating a Catholic schoolteacher as part of a days-long crime spree that included a robbery where a Chinese food deliveryman was stabbed.

Eric Ferguson, 18, was picked up at around 6 a.m. at a friend’s house in The Bronx wearing several articles of clothing from previous robberies and he admitted attacking 62-year-old Patricia McGowan as she arrived at Good Shepherd School in Marine Park on Tuesday, cops said.

He said he was sorry he had punched McGowan, a police source said.

Ferguson’s grandmother had kicked the brazen thug out of her Sheepshead Bay house the previous night after seeing the egregious surveillance footage that caught him attacking McGowan broadcast on television, police sources said.

He also admitted during questioning that he had twice had Chinese food delivered to his grandmother’s building – the day before and after McGowan’s assault – and robbed the deliverymen, police said.

In the earlier food robbery, the deliveryman was stabbed and his car stolen, police said.

After Ferguson allegedly attacked McGowan, he stole her car and ditched it a few blocks from the school – on the same block as his grandmother’s home.

Cops were led to Ferguson, who has an extensive juvenile criminal history and spent time in a Yonkers reform school, after showing pictures of known criminals who live near where the car was ditched to McGowan and she picked his photo.

Following the arrest, McGowan, whose face is still badly bruised and her left eye swollen shut from the assault, was taken from her Staten Island home to the 61st Precinct station house, where cops say she identified Ferguson in a lineup.

She declined to comment.

Ferguson was arrested on June 4 after being caught driving a stolen car in Brooklyn. He was released the next day without bail.

He has also been connected to two other purse snatchings on June 2 and May 31.

As she recovered from her injuries, McGowan did not attend the eighth-grade graduation ceremony at Good Shepherd – the first one she had missed in her 43 years at the school, said Monsignor Thomas Brady.

Additional reporting by Perry Chiaramonte and Lorena Mongelli

lukas.alpert@nypost.com