Homeless ‘squirrel man’ who lives in Manhattan tree arrested in attack on Post reporter
A homeless “squirrel” man who has been nesting in a Manhattan tree for months was busted Monday for attacking a Post reporter with a huge branch and whacking a photographer, too, according to cops and video.
The unprovoked attack unfolded right in front of NYPD officers and city parks officials who were there to “evict” the vagrant from his illegal makeshift tree house in Riverbank State Park.
The suspect, identified by cops as Rewell Altunaga, 44, was caught on camera climbing down from his tree perch and clambering up an embankment to go after the Post reporter just before 10 a.m.
He bashed the reporter, who was standing on the sidewalk, with a branch twice — landing one hit on the side of the victim’s head.
Altunaga was then filmed taking off toward 147th Street after several cops let him walk by them. Cops finally cuffed him after he also beat the Post photographer with a black garbage bag full of his belongings and smashed the shutterbug’s camera into the ground.
The suspect was charged with assault and criminal mischief, police said.
The bizarre ordeal came a day after city officials issued a one-day “notice of clean up” for the section of the park where the man’s sky-high digs were located.
Parks employees arrived early Monday armed with chain saws and heavy machinery to tear down the man’s makeshift home.
Before the scene descended into chaos, cops confirmed to The Post that they were called in to evict him.
After more than an hour, a parks supervisor said workers had cut down four trees surrounding the man’s living quarters but that the crew was unable to completely remove the shelter because it needed access to the adjacent Amtrak train line.
“They have to shut [the train line] down, and then … [cherry-picker] trucks can be put on the tracks” to finish the dismantling job, the supervisor told The Post. “I hope it’s soon. I don’t want to see him back up there.”
City action to remove the months-old encampment came after The Post showed Mayor Eric Adams a photograph of the scene during an unrelated event Saturday.
“That’s not what we want,” Hizzoner said. “That’s not dignified for people.”
The mayor later vowed to start dismantling homeless encampments on city streets, saying his initiative would involve the Department of Homeless Services.
“Right now people are living in inhumane conditions. They’re living under cardboards, they’re living on highways,” Adams said at an event in the Bronx. “They’re living in train tracks where the electricity is extremely dangerous.”
He said teams made up of mental-health professionals and homeless services would go out and put up notices giving people in the encampments 24 to 48 hours to move off the streets.
“After 24 to 48 hours, we are going to take down the encampment,” Adams said, adding that people would later be able to retrieve their personal items from an undisclosed location.
“People are not going to live in makeshift, dangerous housing. We should have never allowed that to happen.”
The mayor’s office said Monday that 150 encampments will be targeted in a two-week operation that began March 18.
“This effort is about taking care of our people and our public space,” Adams Told the Post. “We are breaking down silos and working together across government to keep New Yorkers safe and our streets clean.”
Heriberto Medina Jr,, 41, told The Post on Monday that he has spent two years living under the Brooklyn-Queens Expressway on the border of the Greenpoint and Williamsburg neighborhoods in Brooklyn.
He watched Monday afternoon as his blue tent was dragged away by three sanitation workers. He said he was left with his bike, a pair of backpacks and white Fila sneakers.
Medina said Adams’ statement about living in shelters being safer than on the street is “an absolute lie.
“I got my head cracked. Someone stole my phone,” he said of his time in an East New York shelter in 2018. “It’s a nightmare. I’ve been in numerous shelters. It’s like people bidding. It’s like they’re in prison. You’ve got people claiming stuff.”
Medina said he doesn’t know where he will sleep tonight but added that he won’t go indoors unless he is alone. He has a voucher to get housing when it becomes available but “doesn’t know why it’s taking so long.
“When the crime rate is going up … the first people they target are the homeless,” he said of the city. “You’re kicking us while we are already down. We are always going to be vulnerable.”
Additional reporting by Steven Vago, Nolan Hicks and Sam Raskin
