NEW YORK – The man wanted in connection with three stabbing attacks, one of them fatal, on homeless people sleeping in Manhattan has been arrested, three law enforcement sources with direct knowledge of the case said Wednesday.
No other details about the circumstances of the arrest were immediately released.
News of the arrest comes after our sister station NBC 4 New York obtained a copy of an internal NYPD memo in which department officials warned patrol units in Manhattan to be on the lookout for an attacker. with serial knife. He is believed to have attacked at least three homeless people, all of whom were sleeping in public spaces, in a span of eight days, according to the memo.
The first victim, a 34-year-old man, was sleeping on a park bench on the Hudson River Greenway at West 11th Street on July 5 when police say the attacker stabbed him once in the stomach shortly after 3 a.m. He died at cause of his injuries a short time later.
The other two victims, a 59-year-old man lying on a bench near Madison Avenue and East 49th Street around 10 p.m. Friday and a 28-year-old man stabbed at Stanley Isaacs Playground on East 96th Street near FDR Drive on early Monday, they are expected to survive their injuries. They, like the man who died, were stabbed in the stomach.
None of the victims have been identified.
According to the internal NYPD memo, all officers were told to survey their assigned areas for potential homeless people and “proactively engage” with them in an effort to help get them off the streets. Welfare checks should also be conducted and officers should remind people about shelter and other services available to them, he said.
The memo said special attention should be paid to areas where homeless people tend to camp, though it’s unclear if that’s how police located the suspect.
The case is the second involving a suspect apparently targeting the homeless in New York City this year. In March, a 30-year-old man was arrested for allegedly shooting and killing five people in Manhattan and Washington, DC.
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