Man arrested for punching woman on Dilworth sidewalk in unprovoked attack
A man who, unprovoked, punched a woman walking down a Dilworth sidewalk Thursday morning was arrested after a daylong search. The pending assault charge will be the 23rd criminal charge brought against Di-Quan Schafar Hunt in the last 14 years.
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The man recorded himself walking down the sidewalk at about 10 a.m. Thursday, video shared on social media shows. As a woman passed him across the street from Paper Skyscraper, a popular Charlotte gift shop off East Boulevard, he said “Nah, don’t wave at me,” and hit her.
Video shows the woman lying face up, motionless on the sidewalk as the man yelled and pointed at her face. In her hand, she held a small balloon that said: “Get back on your feet soon!”
She was taken to a hospital with non-life-threatening injuries. Paper Skyscraper in a statement said it was not involved in the incident but gave its footage over to police.
The Charlotte-Mecklenburg Police Department on Thursday said Hunt, 32, was in their custody and receiving medical treatment. Once released from the hospital, he will be jailed and charged with assault with a deadly weapon for the punch. This isn’t the first time he’s been accused of assault, records show.
Video of this assault was shared on a social media account that appears to belong to Hunt. Another video posted July 29 shows Hunt following a woman near the South End neighborhood until she runs into moving South Boulevard traffic and hides behind a stopped car.
In the videos and throughout the account, he references “July 21” and “Elijah, my son.” In the Dilworth attack, he tells the knocked-out woman to “say Elijah! Elijah! Elijah, my son!”
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Hunt was in 2020 convicted of shooting into a building or a vehicle with a person inside, Charlotte-Observer news partner WSOC first reported. He has been arrested on charges of assault against women and government officials, trespassing and violating probation and domestic violence orders eight times in the last three years, jail records show.
In the last 14 years, he has been named in 11 criminal cases in Mecklenburg County District and Superior Court. In total, he has faced 22 charges since 2012. Court records show:
Prison records show Hunt never spent any time in prison for the charges he was convicted on. His sentences were either for time he had served in Mecklenburg County Detention Center or suspended for probation.
He was most recently arrested in December on allegations that he threatened a man with a knife on or near a Gold Line streetcar in uptown Charlotte. The transit agency banned him afterward in September, court records show.
N.C. Speaker of the House Destin Hall on Friday morning posted on X: “Charlotte’s Dems have failed their city. Republicans have been fighting to restore law and order, but too many “leaders” put politics before public safety. Vote them and their soft-on-crime policies out in November.”
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This story was originally published August 7, 2026 at 11:05 AM.
