{"id":196242,"date":"2026-04-14T00:56:18","date_gmt":"2026-04-14T00:56:18","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ny\/196242\/"},"modified":"2026-04-14T00:56:18","modified_gmt":"2026-04-14T00:56:18","slug":"machete-wielding-nut-in-grand-central-attack-rapped-under-name-fox-5","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ny\/196242\/","title":{"rendered":"Machete-wielding nut in Grand Central attack rapped under name ‘Fox 5’"},"content":{"rendered":"

The machete-wielding nut who slashed three straphangers<\/a> and called himself \u201cLucifer\u201d before police shot him dead at Grand Central Station rapped under the stage name \u201cFox 5\u201d and fixated on religion in his freestyle lyrics, The Post has learned.<\/p>\n

Anthony Griffin, 44, was even pictured posing with a broad-based knife<\/a> in a photo posted on his Instagram account about a year before the Saturday subway attack, with friends claiming he carried around the machete for protection and admitting he\u2019d struggled with his mental health.<\/p>\n

\u201cI\u2019m exhausted \u2026The messiah is tired, bro \u2026 I\u2019m a baby, born again, but I\u2019m only 43 and I\u2019m tired, bro,\u201d he said to the camera in an April 2025 clip.<\/p>\n

\u201cI ain\u2019t been 33 in nine years. What they did to Jesus at 33 since we are going to play numbers games? What happened at 33 for Jesus?\u201d<\/p>\n

In another rap video posted the same month, he claimed he was \u201cgonna live how I wanna\u201d and \u201ceven if I smell death around the corner \u2026 it\u2019s far from my persona. I\u2019m the God, n\u2014a.\u201d<\/p>\n

In one post, Anthony Griffin appeared to hold a machete. Instagram\/@almighty_gawdflow<\/p>\n

\u201cWe gonna f\u2013k the devil up. He can\u2019t stop this level up,\u201d he rapped repeatedly in another clip.<\/p>\n

\u201cWhen it\u2019s time for revelation, that\u2019s the moment I\u2019ll be up\u2026 Satan never held me up. Father never held me back.\u201d<\/p>\n

Griffin, a Bronx native who had at least 13 previous arrests, slashed and wounded three elderly victims \u2013 two men and a woman \u2013 when he went on a rampage with a machete on the uptown Nos. 4,5,6 subway platform around 9:50 a.m. April 11, police said.<\/p>\n

He repeatedly claimed that he was \u201cLucifer\u201d when two NYPD detectives, who were working overtime to provide transit security, confronted him and ordered him to drop the blade 20 times, before fatally shooting him, Police Commissioner Jessica Tisch said.<\/p>\n

Members of the rap world said they were shocked, telling The Post Griffin became well-known for his music decades ago.<\/p>\n

Mugshot of Anthony Griffin Obtained by NY Post<\/p>\n

\u201cThat\u2019s not him, him saying \u2018Lucifer,\u2019 a machete, that\u2019s not who Fox was,\u201d Atlanta rapper and fellow Bronx native Mickey Factz said Monday.<\/p>\n

\u201cHe was just a genuine, energetic guy who loved his community and loved to create music. It\u2019s so sad that his mental health took over him.\u201d<\/p>\n

Griffin, whose Instagram handle was \u201calmighty_gawdflow,\u201d regularly rambled about religion in social media videos, the last of which appeared to have been posted to his account nearly a year ago.<\/p>\n

He also put up a photo of himself seemingly holding a machete in January 2025. Friends told News 12 Griffin carried the blade for what they claimed was protection<\/a>, but also that he had been suffering from mental health problems.<\/p>\n

Griffin still performed in front of small crowds in the past few years, according to his social media.<\/p>\n

In a January 2023 YouTube video<\/a> filmed aboard a subway train, he explained that he\u2019d stopped battle rapping about 13 years earlier, while saying \u201chip-hop chose me, I didn\u2019t choose hip-hop.\u201d <\/p>\n

\u201cGod gave me a heartbeat so I already had an instrumental so you know speaking my mind is my freedom. It\u2019s my liberation,\u201d he said, before explaining his \u201cFox 5\u201d stage name.<\/p>\n

One of the injured victims in the attack. Luiz C. Ribeiro for NY Post<\/p>\n

\u201cThis is before the internet, this is before DVDs, I already named myself Fox 5,\u201d he said, wearing sunglasses and a slouchy cap. <\/p>\n

\u201cI knew when I would be a newsflash in the future.\u201d<\/p>\n

Factz, the fellow rapper, said Griffin was on a slew of hip hop DVDs from the early 2000s. The two also collaborated with other artists after connecting in 2010.<\/p>\n

\u201cHe\u2019s always been an eccentric guy. When we were all together to kind of do some hip-hop stuff, he was the most exuberant. He was the most exciting. He had the most energy,\u201d Factz said. \u201cHe drew a lot of people in with how he carried himself.\u201d<\/p>\n

But Griffin seemed to suffer a sharp mental decline in recent years, Factz said.<\/p>\n

\u201cA lot of us who kind of knew him, we never experienced that side of him,\u201d he said.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"The machete-wielding nut who slashed three straphangers and called himself \u201cLucifer\u201d before police shot him dead at Grand…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":196243,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[8],"tags":[1965,57,9,56,63,65,64,3355,361,2442,58],"class_list":{"0":"post-196242","1":"post","2":"type-post","3":"status-publish","4":"format-standard","5":"has-post-thumbnail","7":"category-new-york-city","8":"tag-grand-central-station","9":"tag-metro","10":"tag-new-york","11":"tag-ny","12":"tag-nyc","13":"tag-nyc-headlines","14":"tag-nyc-news","15":"tag-rappers","16":"tag-slashings","17":"tag-stabbings","18":"tag-us-news"},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ny\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/196242","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=196242"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ny\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/196242\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ny\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/196243"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ny\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=196242"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ny\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=196242"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ny\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=196242"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}