NEW YORK – Long Island, New York police have identified a man who stabbed two officers before being killed by police as a 56-year-old ex-con who once served two years in prison for assaulting another law enforcement officer.
Suffolk County Police said Thursday night that the man who attacked officers in Medford on Wednesday was Enrique Lopez.
On Thursday, Police Commissioner Rodney Harrison released more details of the fatal encounter during a news conference outside Stony Brook University Hospital, where officers continued to be treated.
Both officers are recovering from non-life threatening injuries. One of them was on a ventilator, but in stable condition, Harrison said. Their names have not been released.
“By the grace of God, these officers will be returning home to their loved ones,” Harrison said.
Officers responded to a 911 call about a man threatening residents of an apartment complex with a fire extinguisher, police said. When they approached Lopez, he pulled out a large knife, Harrison said.
The officers ordered Lopez to drop his knife, but he lunged at them and stabbed them, Harrison said. One officer was stabbed in the collarbone, neck and groin, and the other was stabbed through his bulletproof vest in the chest, the commissioner said. A third officer was treated in a hospital for tinnitus, or ringing in the ears, and released, authorities said.
One of the officers fired four shots at Lopez, hitting him in the upper chest, Harrison said.
County police told the Associated Press on Thursday that one of the officers who was stabbed shot Lopez, but later said they were wrong and could not confirm which officer opened fire. The state attorney general’s office is investigating the shooting as usual.
The officers who were stabbed are in their 20s and less than five years of service.
Lopez had served two years in prison for assaulting a police officer in 2011, police said.
