A 51-year-old man stabbed two people in broad daylight in the vicinity of Central Park on the Upper West Side in Manhattan on Thursday afternoon before being taken into custody, the police said.<\/p>\n
The assailant, identified as Raul Morales, attacked the two men in separate incidents on Central Park West and Amsterdam Avenue at around 1:30 p.m., leaving them wounded, the police said. Both were expected to survive.<\/p>\n
Mr. Morales first walked up to a 57-year-old man on West 84th and Central Park West and stabbed him in the back with a knife, according to a spokesman for the Police Department. He then went to West 86th Street and Amsterdam, the spokesman said, where he approached another man, this time stabbing him in the torso with a screwdriver.<\/p>\n
It was not immediately clear what led to the midday attack in the heart of the Upper West Side, a residential neighborhood with low crime rates. But on Thursday, Police Commissioner Jessica Tisch said that Mr. Morales had yelled \u201cAllahu akbar\u201d as he attacked both men, according to accounts from the victims and witnesses.<\/p>\n
Ms. Tisch said that the department was evaluating whether the stabbings had been intended as hate crimes and that detectives were still investigating Mr. Morales\u2019s motive. While Mr. Morales did not have a history of mental health issues documented with the department, she added, it appeared that his mental state might have played a role in the attacks.<\/p>\n
The first victim was identified as a 57-year-old Asian man, Chok Sung, according to a law enforcement official with knowledge of the matter. The second victim was Moshe Yezhak Grunhaus, a 50-year-old Jewish man, the official said.<\/p>\n
Both men were taken by emergency medical workers to Mount Sinai Morningside.<\/p>\n
Hate crimes in New York City, particularly those targeting Jewish people, have risen in recent years, even as other major crimes have declined. As of the start of July, the number of confirmed hate crimes in 2026 had risen nearly 8 percent to 322 from the same period a year earlier, according to data provided by the Police Department.<\/p>\n
On Wednesday, the day before the Manhattan stabbings, the police were investigating two separate hate crimes in Brooklyn and Queens, involving anti-Muslim statements and an assault in which the assailant made antisemitic remarks.<\/p>\n
About half the attacks this year targeted Jewish people, making antisemitic violence the largest share of hate crimes in the city. In the same period, the department recorded 33 attacks against people based on their sexual orientation and 10 against Asian New Yorkers.<\/p>\n
Following Mr. Morales\u2019s arrest on Thursday, Mayor Zohran Mamdani, who has angered some Jewish New Yorkers with his longstanding criticism of Israel<\/a>, condemned the stabbings.<\/p>\n \u201cThese hateful and despicable attacks have no place in our city,\u201d the mayor said<\/a>. He echoed Ms. Tisch\u2019s statements that Mr. Morales\u2019s mental health may have been a factor and that the crimes were still being evaluated.<\/p>\n But the episode was quick to draw outrage from several Jewish elected officials<\/a>, who said the attacks appeared to be antisemitic, even as the Police Department had yet to determine a motive. Their swift responses seemed to reflect an anxiety among Jewish leaders in the city over antisemitic violence, particularly as criticism of Israel grows in the United States.<\/p>\n In a statement on Thursday night, the UJA-Federation of New York, a leading Jewish organization, said, \u201cWe\u2019re horrified \u2014 but not surprised \u2014 by today\u2019s brutal attacks on the Upper West Side.\u201d<\/p>\n