{"id":38125,"date":"2025-11-13T11:16:06","date_gmt":"2025-11-13T11:16:06","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ny\/38125\/"},"modified":"2025-11-13T11:16:06","modified_gmt":"2025-11-13T11:16:06","slug":"mom-seeks-answers-after-son-12-with-special-needs-has-lip-split-in-staten-island-park-attack","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ny\/38125\/","title":{"rendered":"Mom seeks answers after son, 12, with special needs has lip split in Staten Island park attack"},"content":{"rendered":"<p><a id=\"articleLabel__link\" class=\"articleLabel__link\" href=\"https:\/\/www.silive.com\/crime-safety\/\" title=\"Navigate to Crime &amp; Safety\" rel=\"nofollow noopener\" target=\"_blank\">Crime &amp; Safety<\/a>Updated: Nov. 13, 2025, 5:50 a.m.|Published: Nov. 13, 2025, 5:50 a.m.<img fetchpriority=\"high\" loading=\"eager\" decoding=\"sync\" alt=\"12-year-old boy attacked\" class=\"hero-image\" src=\"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ny\/wp-content\/uploads\/2025\/11\/QTNIHOZCTVGMPEZIURFOXA52A4.jpeg\"  \/>A 12-year-old boy suffered a split lip requiring stitches and a loosened front tooth after he was assaulted at a park in the vicinity of Tysens Lane and Mill Road on Friday, Oct. 31, 2025.(Courtesy of Mona Awad)<\/p>\n<p class=\"article__paragraph article__paragraph--left\" id=\"HXM6EG3NNZBI7P3BFAS5YZCIM4\">STATEN ISLAND, N.Y. \u2014 A 12-year-old boy with special needs was brutally attacked on Halloween night at a New Dorp park \u2014 an assault his mother says was a case of mistaken identity.<\/p>\n<p class=\"article__paragraph article__paragraph--left\" id=\"JP3WND5FEFDRLEFUUZ5LYQ7G7Y\">Police are investigating the incident, in which the boy, who was hanging out with friends at around 8:20 p.m. in Gerard P. Dugan Playground at Tysens Lane and Mill Road, was cornered by a group against a fence. According to his mother, Mona Awad, the attackers repeatedly punched him in the face with brass knuckles.<\/p>\n<p>Scott R. Axelrod is a breaking news reporter for the Staten Island Advance\/SILive.com. He covers a range of topics from crime and trending entertainment news to profiling the borough&#8217;s most unique residents. He&#8230; more<\/p>\n<p class=\"article__paragraph article__paragraph--center skimlinks\">If you purchase a product or register for an account through a link on our site, we may receive compensation. By using this site, you consent to our <a href=\"https:\/\/www.advancelocal.com\/advancelocalUserAgreement\/user-agreement.html\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noopener noreferrer nofollow\">User Agreement<\/a> and agree that your clicks, interactions, and personal information may be collected, recorded, and\/or stored by us and social media and other third-party partners in accordance with our <a href=\"https:\/\/www.advancelocal.com\/advancelocalUserAgreement\/privacy-policy.html\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noopener noreferrer nofollow\">Privacy Policy.<\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"Crime &amp; SafetyUpdated: Nov. 13, 2025, 5:50 a.m.|Published: Nov. 13, 2025, 5:50 a.m.A 12-year-old boy suffered a split&hellip;\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":38126,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[39],"tags":[9,24,63,134,136,135],"class_list":["post-38125","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","category-staten-island","tag-new-york","tag-new-york-city","tag-nyc","tag-staten-island","tag-staten-island-headlines","tag-staten-island-news"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ny\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/38125","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ny\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ny\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ny\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ny\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=38125"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ny\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/38125\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ny\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/38126"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ny\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=38125"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ny\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=38125"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ny\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=38125"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}