NEW YORK (AP) — A person with a machete who attacked three individuals randomly at a serious New York Metropolis subway station Saturday morning was shot and killed by police, authorities mentioned.
Officers responding to a 9:40 a.m. report of stabbings on the forty second Road-Grand Central station encountered the person. He was behaving erratically, claiming he was “Lucifer,” Police Commissioner Jessica Tisch mentioned at a day information convention. Tisch mentioned he was ordered to drop his weapon at the very least 20 occasions however refused to conform.
She mentioned in the end an officer shot him twice when he superior towards the officers with the knife prolonged.
“Our officers had been confronted with an armed particular person who had already injured a number of individuals and was persevering with to pose a risk,” Tisch mentioned. “They gave clear instructions. They tried to de-escalate. And when that risk didn’t cease, they took decisive motion to cease it and to guard New Yorkers on one of many busiest practice platforms within the metropolis.”
Tisch recognized the suspect as Anthony Griffin, 44, and mentioned he had three prior unsealed arrests. He was pronounced useless at Bellevue Hospital.
The three stabbing victims — an 84 year-old male, 65-year-old male and 70-year-old feminine — sustained accidents that weren’t considered life-threatening, Tisch mentioned. One man sustained “important lacerations to the pinnacle and face,” the opposite man had comparable accidents and an open cranium fracture and the third sufferer had a laceration to the shoulder.
Tisch mentioned the suspect slashed one individual on a platform on the Grand Central station earlier than going upstairs and slashing the opposite victims on one other platform.
Chief of Transit Joseph Gulotta mentioned the assaults seem like random acts.
New York Gov. Kathy Hochul mentioned on social media that she was “grateful to our courageous officers who acted rapidly to cease the suspect. We’re working intently with the NYPD because the investigation unfolds.”
The police division, posting on the social platform X, suggested vacationers within the morning to keep away from the world because of a police investigation and to anticipate delays and heavy visitors. Subway trains resumed stopping on the station within the afternoon after bypassing it for hours, in response to the Metropolitan Transit Authority’s web site.
Beau Lardner mentioned he was simply swiping in at Grand Central when bangs rang out “loud sufficient to listen to by way of headphones,” he instructed the AP in a message. The 34-year-old moved from Manhattan to Lengthy Island just a few weeks in the past, however he’s been taking the identical practice from Grand Central for years.
“I do know that platform just like the again of my hand,” he mentioned.
Lardner described a “wall of individuals” dashing towards him to get by way of the turnstiles, and he sprinted again up the steps. He mentioned he had “by no means seen a crowd transfer like that.”
Robertson reported from Raleigh, N.C. Related Press author Hannah Fingerhut in Des Moines, Iowa, contributed.