At least five people were slashed or stabbed by an emotionally disturbed man in Riverside Park around 8 a.m. Tuesday morning.
The New York Times has updated a story we’ve been reporting on since early this morning:
“An emotionally disturbed man wielding scissors stabbed or slashed at least five people, including a father and his toddler, in a park along the Hudson River on Manhattan’s Upper West Side early Tuesday, according to the police…The father was stabbed in the chest as he tried to fend off the attacker, who slashed the child as well, according to the authorities.
Three more people were stabbed during the rampage.
“I basically just saw a woman crying,” a sanitation worker, Shurrita Fields, told WNBC-TV. “She was bleeding from the neck.”
See more about the attacks and the conditions of the victims here.
The blog A Walk in the Park says the arrested man was homeless:
“A-43-year-old homeless man was apprehended and taken to Bellevue Hospital. Police are classifying the suspect as an emotionally disturbed person. A pair of scissors was recovered at the scene that police say was the weapon used.”
This is what we initially had reported:
Four people were stabbed this morning on the bike path along the Hudson River this morning at around 63rd street, ABC News reported. Other outlets reported that there may have been five victims.
“Police say the victims were attacked on a bike path along the Hudson River, near West 59th Street, just before 8 a.m.
Two adults were taken to Roosevelt Hospital, while two others were transported by police in unknown condition.
A stroller was at the scene, in the middle of the crime scene.”
Metro New York added details on the conditions of the victims:
“The [FDNY] spokesman said there is a total patient count of five at this point, including two adults who were transported to local hospitals.
One of the victims was taken to St. Luke’s uptown and the other to St. Luke’s Roosevelt, the spokesman said. Both hospitalized victims are considered not likely to die.
The other three victims were not transported and the spokesman did not have definitive confirmation on their conditions at this time.”
We will report more details as they come in.
Since the NYPD can’t use their unconstitutional stop and frisk program, crime in Riverside Park has become an all too frequent event? This park had virtually NO crime until mid-August when stop and frisk was thrown out by US District Court Judge Scheindlin. Now crime there feels like a daily occurrence. Maybe the parks commissioner should be better observant of the parks police since they are often times sleeping in their patrol cars or on their cell phones. Honestly, the timing of the rise in crime in Riverside Park and Judge Scheindlin’s decision to declare stop and frisk unconstitutional is all too coincidental. Something has to be done.
In fact, crime has fallen since police reduced the use of stop & frisk.
https://gothamist.com/2013/05/07/stop_frisk_down_by_51_in_2013_as_cr.php
Avi
Time for a new moral treatment of the mentally ill. See my article in City Journal: https://www.city-journal.org/2013/23_2_institutionalization.html
please consider a vote for Lhota. This is our neighborhood and we shouldnt be afraid to live our lives.
The extreme left who controls our neighborhood is getting the are they want – Do we even have to wait and see that the suspect is “homeless” person attracted to our community by all our social services including free housing for all who demand it (at $3K per month paid by taxpayers).
Suspicious and questionable behavior cannot be used to stop and question a residenti in the name of profiling.
Just yesterday, on 28th and 7th Avenue, I personally witnessed a really true crazy man screaming and threatening passersby at the top of his lungs. When I finally saw a police officer to point this out, he was too busy writing a ticket to a bike commuter from so unknown infraction – You can’t make this up.
I am following up on my earlier comment above – it is Oct 3rd. When I wrote the first comment, we had not even seen the attacker – Julius Graham.
I just read today’s New York Times article on him. As I had predicted, he is from Texas, arriving in New York a year ago and staying in our shelter system.
Also, I cannot be sure, but I think he is the same guy that i saw that day on 28th and 7th avenue – screaming and everyone and no one with a dead look in his eyes. I as I wrote , I looked for a police officer, when I found him , he was writing the biker a ticket. I did not do anything else. Should I have interrupted the cop and showed him that guy?What would he have done? Graham was menacing, but not attacking anyone . I figured the police would do nothing..I am haunted by this…..
but thousands of others saw him and did nothing too.
Sounds like the Riverside Park police who ticketed me for not having the leash of my 10 lb dog in my hand for about 1 minute while I picked up a blanket. Apparently, she was “out of my control.” Point is, I agree that the police should focus on protecting park users instead of collecting revenue from them.
Police are too busy stopping and frisking people to actually walk a beat or do some actual police work. We need police on the street and Walking in the park.
Shocking. I dramatic increase in Homeless Shelters along Riverside Drive = Increase in attacks troubled Homeless people on residents of the neighborhood.
Why wouldn’t you pile more and more homeless shelters into a Residential neighborhood surrounded by parks?? What could possibly go wrong?
There have been three incidents now on the UWS that seem to show a low police response that makes me feel vulnerable. Neither this incident nnor the other bottle attack, nor the motorcycle group behavior would have been stopped by stop and frisk. This incident might have been stopped by providing aeequate care to the mentally ill. All might be stopped by having a police presence in which the police pay attention to actual, obvious, ongoing crime (not frisking young people to see whether they might be carrying drugs or weapons with which to commite future crimes).
Most homeless people are not committing these acts. This is not about homelessness and shelters, really, though it is true that where homeless shelters are, homeless people follow – and it is true that the uncared for mentally ill often do wind up homeless and alone and unprotected on the streets. This is about not taking care of the mentally ill, and not having police officers on the ground when and where we need them (although perhaps they are on the ground when and where other New Yorkers need them). I can’t say that it feels to me as though it’s a daily occurrence, but there has clearly been a cluster of frigthening incidents, and I would like to see a response from teh police department raising their profile in the aea – and I would so like to see adequate care for the mentally ill. It is a halmark of a just society that is sorely lacking in ours right now.
Just one evening last week I was walking home from the gym, on 72nd and Broadway, and crossed the path of a homeless, obviously mentally disturbed man. He was screaming illegibly and walking erratically. As a New Yorker, you (unfortunately) become used to such a sight but this guy made me unusually nervous. I gave him a wide berth as I passed. He turned and began to walk in my direction. I walked a quickly as I could until I was certain he wasn’t continuing behind me. My overriding insinct was that I needed to stay out of his reach. It was the first time I can ever remember feeling unsafe in the middle of Broadway, on an early evening, with tons of people around. When I read of this attack he was the first thing I thought of. We need better treatment options of the mentally ill in this nation. Real treatment.
Oh and to West Sider’s comment that crime has gone down: shootings, the type of crime that stop and frisk is primarily intended to prevent, have gone up 13% since Scheindlin’s decision, while gun confiscations have gone down 17%. Cause, meet effect. https://nypost.com/2013/09/19/gunstats/
It seems to me that some of whom are responding to this incident are not attuned to the real problem, which is the seriousness of mental illness of too many New Yorkers. (It is not that someone is just sending these sad folks our way. They are NYers, too.) Having been struck myself twenty years ago by a man who has lived, on and off, in Riverside Park near where I reside — I still see him all the time — I do identify with this morning’s victims. I really do. But what does stop and frisk have to do with any of this?
We might breathe a sigh of relief that this man had a pair of scissors in his hand, bad enough, and not a gun.
Vote for Lhota? Huh? Get rid of the so-called “extreme left”? Hey, folks. This is the Upper West Side. Live somewhere else if you don’t like our politics.
Lhota indeed. My goodness.
Oh my dear! Lhota !
Does the mere mention of his name offend you?
So sorry
this attack was in the park at 63rd Street. the new “homeless shelters” (actually transitional apartments) that everyone is complaining about are on 95th Street, 1.5 miles away. there is no connection. it’s like attributing a murder on York Avenue and 85th to the homeless housing on W 95th.
There is a connection. OUr City in general and our UWS in particular is way to accommodating to these criminals- just look at Bruce and Martha making excuses. These so called homeless are NOT from Manhattan (maybe sometimes from the boroughs). A few weeks ago when there was that other outbreak of vioilent crime against new yorkers, not one of the perpetrators was from New York. The Union Square murderer of “the next white person” he sees is from New Jersey.
Our policies and laws that require us to house everyone who demands it, has made us a magnet for these parasites (ask any of the drug addicted crusties with dogs on Broadway). Even San Francisco has outlawed laying on sidewalks.
Enough is enough and Martha, we are New Yorkers too – third generation here and from an uber liberal family – but enough is enough.
You are taking a tragedy and trying to use it to promote your political agenda and blame an entire class of people. this and the motorcycle incident had nothing to do with the 95th street homeless housing nor with “stop and frisk”. the Riverside Park slasher apparently had been in homeless housing in the Bronx.
and please, stop insisting you are “uber liberal.”
oh Bruce, I did not say I was ‘Uber liberal” I said I came from a family that was.
That said, compared to the general United States population, yup , I am a liberal. Only on the UWS would I be conisdered not.
My point is that you can be progressive, but still have limits. The “uber liberals” and extremists use that to take advantage and pushing their agenda – here is a perfect example.
Your lack of ability to connect the dots is exactly why we have so many damn shelters and SROs while the rest of the city laughs at “the liberals on the uws”. The homeless shelters are on 95th, sure. Do you really think people don’t walk 1.5 miles down the park? Wake up! I agree with you on the motorcycle incident being unrelated, but how can you deny that we have more than our fair share of shelters on the UWS and that the rise in mentally unstable characters in our neighborhood may have something to do with it? And the idea of paying to house the homeless who aren’t even New Yorkers is too much.
Agreed. A few weeks ago in Riverside Park at about 110th Street I saw a shopping cart from Pathmark. The nearest Pathmark is at 125th Street and Lex. Clearly, someone walked it over from there. While homeless people are obviously disadvantaged, the one luxury they do have is time. That coupled with some homeless people’s tendency to carry all their belongings with them and/or lack of Metrocard lends itself to a lot of walking.
I understand there may not be a direct connection between this horrible event and housing for mentally ill persons. However, I believe the UWS has more SRO landlords renting to MICA people because the landlords receive 3,000/month for each MICA person. UWS = 2,000 SROs with potential MICA and Upper EAst Side has less than 100. I think a lot of folks on the UWS know this and a horrible event like this – although it may be unrelated – does bring this issue to the spotlight. Mentally Ill Chemically Addicted people need help but I don’t know why landlords think they should live in the upper 90s unless they are providing that help to them.
Anyone have an update on how the victims are doing? I saw all the newstrucks today outside the hospital.
So scary; I’m usually at that exact spot at that time each morning.
Prayers to our fellow UWsers.