Victims include a pizza parlor counter attendant, a child in handcuffs, a Dollar General clerk, and two adolescents
NEW YORK CITY, CLEVELAND, NEW CASTLE, Delaware––Assault and pit bull attack victim Zakaria El Sherief, 47, a counter worker at Roma Pizza in the Flatiron district of New York City, was at last report still intubated, comatose, and listed in critical condition after a week at Bellevue Hospital.
Tyshaum Watson, 35, entered Roma Pizza with an unleashed pit bull and started to sit in the indoor dining area at about 9:55 p.m. on August 19, 2024.
“You can’t have the dog in the dining area”
Zakaria El Sherief, an Egyptian immigrant who reportedly came to the U.S. to work while his wife and children live in Italy, asked Watson to either leash the pit bull or take the pit bull to an outside table.
Pizza Roma day manager Timmy Moha, 28, a fellow Egyptian, told New York Post reporters Kevin Sheehan, Kyle Schnitzer and Steve Janoski that, “Zach went back and said, ‘I’m so very sorry, but it’s the law, there’s nothing I can do — you can’t have the dog in the dining area.’
“Watson then allegedly exploded, cursing and screaming as he followed El Sherief back to the register,” Sheehan, Schnitzer, and Janoski reported in a joint account.
“He started punching Zack at the register, and Zack went down,” continued Moha said.
“That’s when the dog started biting and attacking him.”
Pit bull drove kitchen worker back
“A kitchen worker tried to pull El Sherief away,” Sheehan, Schnitzer, and Janoski wrote, “but the dog turned on him and scared him back into the kitchen, where he called the cops.
The Roma Pizza surveillance camera allegedly caught Watson dragging Sherief outside in a chokehold, throwing him to the ground, hitting him repeatedly, and then twice stomping on his face.
“Watson’s pit bull joined the attack,” apparently for the second time, “viciously biting Sherief multiple times,” reported Arundhati Kumar for Our Town on August 22, 2024.
“After the attack,” Sheehan, Schnitzer, and Janoski continued, “Watson went back into the restaurant, sat down at a table, and waited for the cops.
“Staring at himself in the mirror”
“He was just staring at himself in the mirror,” Moha told the New York Post reporters.
“He was just staring at himself and calming his dog. When the cops came, he just put both hands up and stood up. He looked like he was drunk or on drugs.”
Added Sheehan, Schnitzer, and Janoski, “Cops said he bizarrely apologized to them.”
Arrested at the scene, Watson was charged with second-degree attempted murder, plus first and second degree assault. The attempted murder charge could be upgraded to murder if Sherief dies from his injuries.
If Watson is convicted, explained Kumar, “he could get a mandatory minimum prison sentence of five years and a maximum of 25 years.”
A murder conviction could send Watson to prison for life.
Criminal record in Virginia
Watson “has a criminal record in Virginia with three misdemeanor convictions for embezzlement, domestic violence assault, and driving while intoxicated,” Kumar learned.
Arraigned in Manhattan Criminal Court, Watson was granted release on either $250,000 cash bail or $500,000 bond, at request of the prosecution, but not before Judge Simiyon Haniff expressed surprise that the prosecutor’s office did not request that Watson be held without bond, in view of the severity of the injuries to Sharief and the seriousness of the charges.
(Beth Clifton collage)
Who is Tyshaum Watson?
“Watson’s attorney, Kristin McAlpin, testified that Watson “lives in Secaucus, New Jersey, with his significant other, and, before that, lived with his son, now 10, whom he still supports,” summarized Molly Crane-Newman and Ellen Moynihan for the New York Daily News.
“Watson is employed as a senior sales manager for a Fifth Avenue hotel and has worked in the hospitality sector for five years,” Crane-Newman and Moynihan continued.
“He was laid off by Apple during the height of the COVID pandemic and served in the National Guard for a decade as a chemical specialist,” according to McAlpin, who added that Watson’s arrests in Virginia were alcohol-related.
“I think alcohol might be a factor in this case,” McAlpin said.
Mentioned Crane-Newman and Moynihan, “Watson posted several videos on social media in the days before the attack of him and his dog, a black pit bull named Dior, walking in New York.
Dior the pit bull was impounded for a 10-day rabies quarantine by Animal Care Centers of New York City.
Child in handcuffs
Sherief was beaten and mauled into critical condition about 29 hours after Ashland County, Ohio sheriff’s deputies responded to a call that a child had been attacked by a pit bull at 5:06 p.m. on August 18, 2024 in Savannah, Ohio, a rural community southwest of Cleveland.
A six-year-old boy, they found, was in serious condition from pit bull bites to the neck and ear, suffered while allegedly handcuffed by both hands and feet as a punishment by his mother, Angelina Williams, 27, of Cleveland, and her boyfriend Taylor Desiree Marvin-Brown.
Both were charged with child endangerment and obstruction of justice.
Head-on collision
The pit bull owner, Robert Michalski, 47, reportedly a relative of Marvin-Brown, was charged with child endangerment and tampering with evidence, after sheriff’s deputies found him and the pit bull “hiding in a cubbyhole upstairs at the residence” while executing a search warrant the following day.
Bond for Williams was set at $300,000, for Marvin-Brown at $250,000, and for Michalski at $150,000.
Michalski, then of nearby Nova, Ohio, previously came to law enforcement attention at approximately 10:19 p.m. on November 29, 2021 after his Honda Pilot reportedly “went left of center into the path of a 2014 Ford Focus going eastbound driven by Courtney A. Kovacs, age 22 of West Salem, Ohio.”
Kovacs was killed. The driver of a third car involved in the ensuing pileup was injured.
Dollar General
A more typical use of a pit bull in connection with crime came to light about an hour earlier, at about 4:17 p.m., on August 18, 2024 in New Castle, Delaware.
Delaware State Police arrested Matthew Perez, 23, and Veronica Coleman, 27, both of New Castle.
According to the police report, “Perez and Coleman had been banned from the store due to a prior shoplifting incident. As they were escorted outside, Perez became aggressive with the store employee and threatened harm.”
As the employee tried to escape the confrontation, “Perez pursued on foot while Coleman followed in a black Buick Sedan. Coleman then released a dog from the vehicle,” who “began attacking the employee. Perez, armed with a large knife, continued to threaten the employee. Coleman also attempted to strike the employee with the vehicle.
Allegedly tried to run over adolescents
“A 12-year-old bystander, who attempted to intervene verbally, was threatened by Coleman, who accelerated the vehicle toward the child. The child was able to avoid being struck and witnessed the ongoing attack on the employee. A 15-year-old, also present in the parking lot, was nearly hit by the vehicle.”
Perez was charged with possession of a deadly weapon during the commission of a felony, aggravated menacing, terroristic threatening, endangering the welfare of a child, resisting arrest, and disorderly conduct.
Coleman was charged with second degree assault, first degree reckless endangerment, two counts of aggravated menacing, terroristic threatening, endangering the welfare of a child, reckless driving, and criminal trespass.
87% of dogs used in crimes are pit bulls
While three reported uses of dogs in the commission of alleged felonies within a 48-hour interval is rare, the use of pit bulls in such cases is not.
In 53 of 61 felony cases (87%) logged by ANIMALS 24-7 since 2020 in which a dog was used as a weapon in the commission of a crime other than the ensuing dog attack itself, and/or dogfighting, the dog was a pit bull.
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Another clear indicator of a society in crisis.
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