At 5:27 pm last night, New York Police Officers received multiple 911 calls about a man armed with a sharp object inside the New York Presbyterian Brooklyn Methodist Hospital. This man was threatening to cut himself and others with what callers believed to be a knife.
Officers arrived at the scene around 5:33 pm and quickly rushed to the eighth floor of the hospital, which was in lockdown.
Officers confronted the attacker, a man in his early 60s, in the doorway of one of the hospital rooms as he attempted to barricade himself and two hostages inside. They noted blood splattered over the floors, walls, and the door. Inside the room was a patient of the hospital, a man in his 70s, and one of the hospital’s security guards.
Officers repeatedly told the man to drop his weapon and open the door for more than 3 minutes, but he refused. The officers deployed tasers twice during attempts to subdue the man, but both were unsuccessful. They also tried to kick the door down, but the attacker held it shut. Officers fired their weapons in response to the attacker’s attempts to charge at them. The man was struck and later pronounced deceased at the scene.
The attacker appears to have been a patient at the hospital, admitted just the day before, on January 7. Police recovered the weapon from the scene, which was determined to be a sharp piece from a broken toilet seat. It is unclear how the attacker got the weapon or if he had any relationship with the hostages held inside the room.
Officers’ body cameras captured footage of the event, and the NYPD’s Force Investigation Division is handling the case. In a statement outside the hospital to the press, Assistant Police Chief Charles Minch said, “Every day our officers put on their uniforms, they never know what kind of dangerous situation they are going to encounter. That is the risk that every member of the NYPD faces every single day to keep this city safe.”
The attacker’s identity has not yet been released. The hospital has declined to provide additional details about the attacker, citing patient privacy laws. The other patient and the security guard held inside the room were not hurt. New York Presbyterian Brooklyn Methodist Hospital has lifted its lockdown and is currently accepting patients.
