A man who carried out a string of stabbings across New York City, killing two people and critically wounding a third, had been arrested eight times in the past.
The 51-year-old suspect, who is in police custody but remains unnamed by authoritues, was reportedly arrested as recently as last month.
The vicious and apparently unprovoked attacks took place on Monday morning within two and half hours of each other at various locations around Manhattan. The suspect reportedly did not utter a word to any of his three victims.
The first stabbing, on West 19th Street, killed a 26-year-old construction worker who was standing by his work site near the Hudson River a little before 8:30 a.m. About two hours later and across the island of Manhattan, a 68-year-old man was attacked while fishing in the East River near East 30th Street.
Both men have since died, according to Joseph Kenny, the New York Police Department’s chief of detectives.
The suspect then apparently traveled north near the riverfront. Around 10:55 a.m., a 36-year-old woman was stabbed multiple times near the United Nations headquarters on East 42nd Street, Kenny said. She is hospitalized in critical condition.
A passing cabdriver saw the third attack and alerted police on nearby First Avenue and East 46th Street, officials said. An officer soon apprehended the suspect, who was found with blood on his clothes and the two kitchen knives he was carrying.
The names of the victims are also currently being withheld by police, as investigators work to understand what happened to provoke the rampage.
“Three New Yorkers. Unprovoked attacks that left us searching for answers on how something like this could happen,” Mayor Eric Adams said at a news conference. He called the violence “a clear, clear example” of failures in the criminal justice system and elsewhere.
The suspect, apparently homeless, had been sentenced in a criminal case a few months ago, the Democratic mayor said, without giving further details.
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