Terrifying moment girl, 16, is STRANGLED from behind by a homeless woman while eating outside NYC sushi restaurant as violent crime in the Big Apple spirals out of control

Maria Ambrocio, 58, died a day after after being knocked over by a fleeing mugger in Times Square on Friday, with her alleged attacker Jermaine Foster, right, now charged with her murder

The victim 'sustained pain, redness, and swelling, but was not transported to a hospital,' police revealed after the attack. 

Following the incident, investigators announced that they were looking for a male suspect, but later backtracked and said Sunday they had arrested Martinez instead.

Martinez, the sole suspect in the frightening altercation, boasts an extensive criminal history, which six felony arrests since 2015, law-enforcement sources say.

There was also a warrant issued in August for her arrest, on a grand-larceny charge, sources add. 

What's more, in January 2020, police came across Martinez incoherently talking to herself in the Elmhurst neighborhood of Queens, and she was subsequently carted off to a local hospital, The New York Post reported.

The attack comes as the Big Apple has found itself rocked by a wave of violent crime over the past year, fueling fears it is returning to the dark days of the '70s and '80s when murders were rife and the city earned the unsettling nickname Fear City. 

The attack comes as The Big Apple has found itself rocked by a wave of violent crime over the past year, fueling fears it is returning to the dark days of the '70s and '80s when murders were rife and the city earned the unsettling nickname Fear City.

In 2021, nearly every type of violent crime has seen a stark increase in the city of New York 

A map showing the New York City boroughs where crime has increased (in red) and decreased (in green) in September 2021 compared to the same month last year

In 2021, nearly every type of violent crime has seen an increase in New York. 

Crime in the city has soared over the summer in particular, with felony assaults specifically climbing to unsettling new heights.

According to recent figures from NYPD's CompStats, the department's data gathering unit, felony assaults recorded as of the week ending on October 3, are up by a stark 7 percent, with 16,889 incidents in 2021 compared to 15,787 incidents last year.      

And the lingering effects of the pandemic are still snarling The City That Never Sleeps. 

With a lack of jobs, poverty rates have drastically increased - and so have the number of homeless. 

The Bowery Mission estimates there are 80,000 homeless in the five boroughs - one in every 106 city residents. 

Last spring, in a bid to slow the transmission of the virus, the city started housing thousands of homeless people in hotel rooms left empty as tourists fled - but Mayor Bill DeBlasio ended the program in June, thrusting those people back on the city streets, sparking a slew of crime.

Last month, a deaf woman fell onto the subway tracks after she was hit in the head by a homeless man who had been arrested for sucker-punching another victim just four days earlier.   

Police later arrested Vladimir Pierre, 41, in connection to the attack. 

In August, a similar incident occurred at the Union Square station, where a homeless man was caught striking a victim in the back of the head with a hammer, before leaving him bleeding on the platform after the victim looked at him in the 'wrong way.'  

Police arrested 41-year-old Jamar Newton from Brooklyn and charged him with assault, reckless endangerment, criminal possession of a weapon and robbery.    

That incident occurred one day after another woman was randomly attacked on a subway platform and beaten with a metal pole by a homeless man while waiting for the G train.

And back in February, a 21-year-old homeless man, Rigoberto Lopez, with four prior arrests and a history of hospitalization for mental illness, was arrested for a string of stabbings that left two dead and two wounded on the city's subway system.

As for the October 4 incident, police say the investigation is currently ongoing.