The horrific killing of FDNY Lt. Alison Russo-Elling last week brings heartbreak to a city reeling from escalating violence against woman.

Russo-Elling, 61, a 25-year EMS veteran was stabbed to death in an unprovoked attack in Astoria, Queens on Thursday Oct. 29.

She was among the heroes who responded on that day to the 9/11 attack at the Twin Towers.

Peter Zisopoulos, 34, was charged with murder and illegal weapon possession in the crime.

Russo-Elling’s heartbroken elderly parents condemned the crime after leaving the New York City Medical Examiner’s office  and identifying the body of the fallen FDNY hero.

“People who work in the city don’t want to go into the city anymore because of what’s happening, not only on the subways [but] on the streets,” Russo-Elling’s mother Catherine Fuoco, 85, told the New York Post. “They’re groping women. There are naked men. They’re doing all kinds of dastardly deeds,” she added.

How many women in New York City have to die in unprovoked attacks at the hands of a crazed killer, who is not getting mental health treatment?

As FDNY Acting Commissioner Laura Kavanagh said of  Russo-Elling’s death, it was “heartbreaking,” adding she was stabbed in a “barbaric and completely unprovoked attack.” 

We started the year with Michelle Go being shoved by a deranged stranger in front of a train in Times Square.

Her alleged killer, Simon Martial, was deemed unfit to stand trial.

Christina Yuna Lee in February was a stabbing victim by a stranger who followed her home on the Lower East Side. The assailant, Assamad Nash, 25, was charged with first-degree murder, burglary, and sexually motivated burglary. 

Also in February, Dorothy Clarke-Rozier, 50, was stabbed to death on a Brooklyn street while she was going to work. Her alleged killer, Anthony Wilson, was charged with murder and criminal possession of a weapon.

Zisopoulos, it was learned over the weekend, may have had a motive for the attack. In 2018 he was transported by EMS to Elmhurst Hospital as an emotional disturb person after making threatening comments to Asians.   

While “We lost one of our heroes,” Mayor Eric Adams said during a press briefing, what is the city doing to protect women on the streets and subways?

The city needs to step up its enforcement efforts on dangerous mentally ill men, who are predators towards women.