NEW YORK (AP) \u2014 A man with a machete who attacked three people randomly at a major New York City subway station Saturday morning was shot and killed by police, authorities said.<\/p>\n
Officers responding to a 9:40 a.m. emergency call of an assault at the 42nd Street-Grand Central station encountered the man. He was behaving erratically, claiming he was \u201cLucifer,\u201d Police Commissioner Jessica Tisch said at an afternoon news conference. Tisch said he was ordered to drop his weapon 20 times but refused to comply.<\/p>\n
She said ultimately an officer shot him twice when he advanced toward the officers with the knife extended.<\/p>\n
\u201cOur officers were confronted with an armed individual who had already injured multiple people and was continuing to pose a threat,\u201d Tisch said. \u201cThey gave clear commands. They attempted to de-escalate. And when that threat did not stop, they took decisive action to stop it and to protect New Yorkers on one of the busiest train platforms in the city.\u201d<\/p>\n
Tisch identified the suspect as Anthony Griffin, 44, and said he had three prior unsealed arrests. He was pronounced dead at Bellevue Hospital.<\/p>\n
The three stabbing victims \u2014 an 84 year-old male, 65-year-old male and 70-year-old female \u2014 sustained injuries that were not thought to be life-threatening, Tisch said. One man sustained \u201csignificant lacerations to the head and face,\u201d the other man had similar injuries and an open skull fracture and the third victim had a laceration to the shoulder.<\/p>\n
Tisch said the suspect slashed one person on a platform at the Grand Central station before going upstairs and slashing the other victims on another platform.<\/p>\n
Chief of Transit Joseph Gulotta said the attacks appear to be random acts.<\/p>\n
New York Gov. Kathy Hochul said on social media that she was \u201cgrateful to our brave officers who acted quickly to stop the suspect. We\u2019re working closely with the NYPD as the investigation unfolds.\u201d<\/p>\n
The police department, posting on the social platform X, advised travelers in the morning to avoid the area due to a police investigation and to expect delays and heavy traffic. Subway trains resumed stopping at the station in the afternoon after bypassing it for hours, according to the Metropolitan Transit Authority’s website.<\/p>\n
Beau Lardner said he was just swiping in at Grand Central when bangs rang out \u201cloud enough to hear through headphones,\u201d he told the AP in a message. The 34-year-old moved from Manhattan to Long Island a few weeks ago, but he\u2019s been taking the same train from Grand Central for years.<\/p>\n
\u201cI know that platform like the back of my hand,\u201d he said.<\/p>\n
Lardner described a \u201cwall of people\u201d rushing toward him to get through the turnstiles, and he sprinted back up the stairs. He said he had \u201cnever seen a crowd move like that.\u201d<\/p>\n
Robertson reported from Raleigh, N.C. Associated Press writer Hannah Fingerhut in Des Moines, Iowa, contributed.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"NEW YORK (AP) \u2014 A man with a machete who attacked three people randomly at a major New…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":193519,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[8],"tags":[77305,5302,77282,426,9,24,55,54,77275,56,833,834,3065,829,831,27231],"class_list":{"0":"post-193720","1":"post","2":"type-post","3":"status-publish","4":"format-standard","5":"has-post-thumbnail","7":"category-new-york-city","8":"tag-anthony-griffin","9":"tag-jessica-tisch","10":"tag-joseph-gulotta","11":"tag-kathy-hochul","12":"tag-new-york","13":"tag-new-york-city","14":"tag-new-york-city-headlines","15":"tag-new-york-city-news","16":"tag-new-york-subway-station-injuries-hospital","17":"tag-ny","18":"tag-package-100024-ap-online","19":"tag-package-100373-mc-complete-state-national","20":"tag-product-30083-ap-new-york-city-news-no-weather","21":"tag-product-30598-ap-national-news-report-a-wire","22":"tag-product-31998-ap-online-national-news","23":"tag-product-46986-ap-online-top-stories"},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ny\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/193720","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ny\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ny\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ny\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ny\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=193720"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ny\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/193720\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ny\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/193519"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ny\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=193720"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ny\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=193720"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ny\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=193720"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}