Rudy Giuliani, a former mayor of New York City, spoke out on Monday after receiving a backslap while doing his grocery shopping.
Former New York mayor Rudy Giuliani said he was assaulted in a Staten Island supermarket by an employee, in an attack that he said could have ended his life if he had fallen over. The disbarred former lawyer is calling for the grocery store worker to be prosecuted and fired for the alleged assault.
According to authorities, a ShopRite employee on Staten Island has been detained after reportedly attacking Rudy Giuliani on Sunday. While Giuliani was handing out fliers at the business on Staten Island in New York, police said that Daniel Gill, 39, hit him on the back.
The former mayor claimed that at the time, he truly had no idea what had struck him. He was astonished because he had traveled there to campaign for himself, his son, and other associates at least 500 times and maybe as many as 1,000 times, he calculated.
Who Is Daniel Gill From Staten Island?
Daniel Gill is an employee at a ShopRite in Staten Island who is currently in the headlines after slapping the former mayor.
— Ron Filipkowski 🇺🇦 (@RonFilipkowski) June 26, 2022
Giuliani was campaigning for his son Andrew, who is seeking the Republican nomination for governor of New York, at a ShopRite store on Sunday when he said he was hit from behind. Giuliani said he stumbled forward because of the blow but didn’t fall over.
During the alleged attack, all of a sudden, he felt a shot in his back, like somebody shot him, according to Mayor Rudy Giuliani, 78, on The Curtis Sliwa Show. He proceeded but fortunately avoided falling, he claimed, adding that if he hadn’t been in quite an excellent form, he would have fallen and most likely fractured his skull.
He said the slap “hurt enormously” and that he had no idea what it was during a Facebook Live video on Monday morning. Giuliani claimed, “I felt like a rock was thrown at me in the back.”
Rudy Giuliani Assault Suspect Arrested And Slap Charges
The suspect was identified as store employee Daniel Gill, 39, who was charged with second-degree assault, according to the New York Police Department.
Giuliani, the former personal lawyer to Donald Trump, has been very vocal about the incident and said that, as a 78-year-old, the blow could have led him to fall, crack his skull and die.
Giuliani told radio show host and former New York mayoral candidate Curtis Sliwa that the hit felt like “a shot on my back, like somebody shot me. I went forward, but luckily I didn’t fall down.”
“The guy says words I can’t repeat. ‘You effin’ whatever.’ And then he goes on and on and on, yelling and screaming,” Giuliani said, adding that the man looked “either drunk or high.” The NYPD later told The New York Times that the man said, “What’s up scumbag,” when he hit Giuliani.
“I mean, suppose I was a weaker 78-year-old and I hit the ground, cracked my skull, and died,” he said.
According to PEOPLE, Gill was charged with second-degree assault. There was no easy way to find Gill’s lawyer information.
According to a statement from a ShopRite official to PEOPLE, they are aware that on Sunday, an incident involving former Staten Island Mayor Rudy Giuliani was started by a shop employee. Security at the store saw the event, intervened quickly, and called the police. Aggression toward anyone is not tolerated.
Rudy Giuliani Assault Video Explained
In a statement to The New York Times, Giuliani said the blow left red marks and that his “back hurts, but otherwise I’m able to walk and stuff like that.”
However, video footage obtained by the New York Post from inside the supermarket — which can be seen in the clip posted to Twitter below — shows a different chain of events than the violent assault described by the former mayor.
Video of the “assault” on Rudy at ShopRite, where Rudy had the person arrested, and said if he wasn’t in better shape he would’ve fallen, cracked his skull, and died. pic.twitter.com/EpgSpPu2fk
— Ron Filipkowski 🇺🇦 (@RonFilipkowski) June 26, 2022
Gill touched Giuliani in the video, then kept moving. He then appeared to be verbally engaged with the ex-Trump lawyer. Giuliani said in his Live video that the guy referred to him using filthy swear words that he was unable to repeat (he claimed to the Post that Gill referred to him as “a f—-ing scumbag”).
He said, the attack on his father, America’s Mayor, was over politics. We won’t let left-wing assaults frighten us. As governor, he will stand up for law and order so that New Yorkers feel safe again.