Funviralpark A new NYPD officer had just blocked Times Square after being attacked with a machete on New Year’s Eve on his first day on the job. Police are investigating whether the suspect is a recently radicalized Islamist extremist, police sources said.
The officer, who graduated Friday and was assigned to a district on Staten Island, but spent the night working on New Year’s Eve details, was killed on West 52nd and 8th Streets when a machete-wielding lunatic approached him and two other officers. It was located on the street. 30 pm, a NYPD source told The Post.
The post was outside an area where attendees were being screened for weapons, Police Commissioner Kiecchant Sewell said at a press conference on Sunday.
A rookie cop, whom Mayor Eric Adams identified as Paul, was hit in the head, prompting another officer to shoot the suspect and hitting the suspect in the shoulder. a source said. Sewell said Paul suffered major lacerations and a skull fracture.
One of the other officers, an eight-year veteran, was also hit in the head with a weapon and suffered lacerations.
At a press conference, Adams said the attack was “unprovoked”.
The 19-year-old suspect was arrested and taken to Bellevue Hospital. A senior law enforcement official said police were investigating whether he was a recent radical Islamic extremist, based on online posts.
Both injured officers were also taken to Bellevue Hospital and are expected to recover. Both Sewell and Adams stressed that there was no “active threat” to the community.
The suspect attacked the officer with a machete.
A photo of the machete on display at a press conference at Bellevue Hospital on January 1, 2023.
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Police are working with the FBI Joint Terrorism Task Force to investigate the shocking attack. The motive was not immediately clear.
“No backpacks or umbrellas allowed in Times Square. They forgot to mention the machete,” a police source told The Post.
Sewell arrived at the hospital shortly after the injured officer was hospitalized and visited him. The mayor arrived in his confetti-covered SUV around 12:30 am on New Year’s Day. As the crowd bid farewell to 2022, Hisoner pressed a button to start the ball drop countdown.
Meanwhile, another officer was hit by a patrol car while trying to move barricades on 52nd Street and Broadway so officers could arrive to respond to a man with a machete, witnesses said.
“They moved the barricade very fast. He was a police officer in front of the barricade area and he moved it like a patrol car would move fast. He was doubly distressed,” said witness Kim. Novak told the Post.
A police source said the officer was taken west of Mount Sinai and is expected to recover.
The area was already a hotspot for violence.
Officers had to intervene as the crowd was about to tear down the barricade just an hour before the man with the machete ran towards the officers.
Times Square at night was not the only attack. At about 8:45 p.m., a brawl broke out between two of his men on West 42nd Street and his 6th Avenue, and a man was stabbed in the neck with a pair of scissors.
Another man was stabbed “about eight times” near Seventh Avenue and West 40th Street hours before the festivities began, according to the New York Police Department. The victim was taken to Bellevue Hospital, where his injuries are said to be non-life-threatening.
