Attack victim slams AOC over cop raise: ‘Praying for police’

A Queens woman who lost an eye in a horrifying caught-on-camera attack this past September blasted Rep. Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez Thursday after the lawmaker suggested funding for much-needed NYPD raises instead be given to the Big Apple’s public schools, pools, parks, and libraries.

Elizabeth Gomes, 33, who was dragged across the Howard Beach-JFK Airport subway station by a homeless ex-con last year, decried the “Squad” member’s calls to reduce police funding in an interview with “Fox & Friends.”

“Once you put safety first, everything else will go right after it,” Gomes said.

“I cannot call a teacher if I need help. If a man is running me down, I cannot call a teacher. I’m going to have to call the police. I’m going to be praying for police, not a teacher.”

The Bronx and Queens Democrat, who has long backed the “defund the police” movement, attacked Mayor Eric Adams’ decision to give “militarized” city cops their first raise in seven years during an interview on “The Daily Show” Monday night.

“We are now at a point where officially, most officers are paid more than a teacher with a master’s degree serving these same kids involved in these same incidents,” Ocasio-Cortez said. “We are defunding safety, defunding our public schools, defunding our public pools, defunding our parks [and] defunding our libraries.”

AOC added: “When we are taking all of those resources and demanding that every single department – except the militarized one – be cut, we are sending a message about who and what we care about.”

Gomes acknowledged city cops and teachers are both in need of additional funding, but stressed that public safety should be the utmost priority.

“We need both, but safety do[es] come first. If you don’t make these children safe in school, how would you make them want to go to school?” she asked. “Once anybody feels in danger in any kind of way, they wouldn’t want to go. You want to fix all these community places like pools and parks? But how would people want to go if there’s no safety? I believe safety come[s] with police officers.”

Gomes was brutally beaten while commuting to Kennedy Airport, where she works as a security guard, at about 5:20 a.m. on Sept. 20, 2022.

Shocking surveillance footage taken inside the subway station shows the 33-year-old was thrown around and repeatedly kicked and punched in the face by Waheed Foster, a 41-year-old career criminal on parole after previously beating his grandmother to death.

Foster was charged with assault and held without bail.

“I got attacked and from the attack, I lost vision in my right eye. And from lack of police officers being in the subway station at the time, from them being defunded at that time, there was no one there to help,” Gomes recalled.

“He was a convicted felon. He was in jail multiple times. He killed his foster grandmother at 14. This guy was supposed to be locked up a long time. He shouldn’t even have been walking the street at all,” Gomes said.

“The only thing I was really thinking about honestly was somebody helping me.”