A nicotine fiend knocked out a total stranger on a Brooklyn street because he was angry that nobody would give him a cigarette — and then he did a victory dance because he “felt exhilarated,” police sources told The Post.
Michael Grant, 27, was trying to score the smoke on New Lots Avenue and Ashford Street at around 12:30 p.m. Tuesday, but lost his cool when he was turned down numerous times, he told cops.
He walked up to Pam Thompson, 41, as she was coming out of AA Nail Salon and clocked her square in the face, cops said. Her head slammed into the window, knocking her out cold.
The brute celebrated his sucker punch with a dance next to the injured woman’s body. He later told police, “I just felt exhilarated.”
Thompson, 41, was stunned by the cowardly attack.
“I don’t know him. I never saw him before in my life,” she said. “I have no idea why [he did this]. He just attacked me for no reason. He punched me and that was all I saw. Out of nowhere!”
The victim’s distraught daughter, Shanaya Thompson, was also horrified.
“He never stopped to take her money or wallet or anything. He just ran down the block a little did a dance and kept on running,” she added.
Police found the man at a nearby bodega doing the same victory dance and was surrounded by five squad cars, a witness said.
“You’re lucky they got you first! Punching ladies in the street!” a man who identified himself as Robert barked at Grant, 27.
“He looked like he was going to run but he saw five cop cars, he stopped and stayed still,” Robert, who refused to provide his last name said.
Grant has prior arrests for robbery, marijuana and menacing, cops said.
Thompson refused medical attention at the scene.
The incident is similar in its randomness to at least eight other stranger-punch attacks since Oct. 11 in the Crown Heights, Midwood and Borough Park sections of Brooklyn.
The NYPD is still trying to determine if any of these incidents are a part of the notorious knockout game that is spreading around the country.
A 46-year-old homeless man died in September when someone sucker-punched him and he hit his head on a fence in Jersey City.