A machete-wielding man who was shot by police in the subway station at Grand Central Terminal after slashing three elderly straphangers repeatedly told officers, “Shoot me,” as police ordered him to drop his weapon, body-cam footage released Friday shows.
Anthony Griffin, 44, confronted NYPD Transit detectives Ryan Giuffre and Anthony Manetta while wielding a machete on the stairs leading from the mezzanine to the uptown 4/5/6 platform inside Grand Central Station around 9:40 a.m. on April 11, the newly released footage shows.
“Drop the f—–g knife. Drop the f—–g knife. Nobody wants to shoot you. Drop the f—–g knife,” Giuffre shouts with his weapon drawn.
Griffin, who can be seen holding the machete in his right hand and wearing an Oakland Raiders poncho, backs down the stairs and onto the platform as he repeatedly shouts “Please shoot me,” and “I am Lucifer,” at the detectives.
At one point, Griffin appears to lunge at Manetta, who evades him by ducking behind a column on the platform.
“Please, please, please. Get down. Stop, stop, stop,” Giuffre said.
“We’re going to get you help,” Giuffre said. “We’re going to get you help. Stop!”
Despite the orders to stop, Griffin approached Giuffre with the weapon still in his hands. The detective fires two shots.
Though it’s not shown in the body-cam footage, video obtained by the Daily News shows cops performing CPR on Griffin at the scene. The suspect was transported to Bellevue Hospital, where he died.
The violent attack marked a tragic and final chapter in Griffin’s downward spiral following his mother’s death in 2021. Her passing had a profound effect in him, friends say, and left him without a place to live, and he was forced to enter the city’s shelter system in 2022.
While Griffin, a battle rapper known as Fox 5, had no documented history of mental issues with the NYPD and had not been formally diagnosed with a mental illness, his family said that in recent years Griffin seemed depressed. He struggled with alcohol abuse and insomnia. Looking for some kind of solace he reportedly became deeply interested in religion.
Friends said had been binge drinking for days before the attack without sleeping — a habit he formed while mourning the death of his mother years ago.
Police said Griffin entered the transit system at the Vernon Blvd. station in Queens around 9:30 a.m. and took the No. 7 train to Grand Central Station. Once he got off the train, he immediately pulled out his machete and lunged at an 84-year-old man on the platform, leaving him with significant slash wounds to his head and face.
Griffin then moved upstairs to the Nos. 4/5/6 platform, where he attacked a 65-year-old man and a 70-year-old woman. The man suffered slash wounds to the face and an “open skull fracture,” and the woman was hacked in the shoulder, cops said.
Griffin apparently didn’t know his three victims, who were targeted at random, NYPD Chief of Transit Joseph Gulotta said.
“These appear to be random acts,” Gulotta said.
The two detectives were working an overtime detail when a witness alerted them about what was happening.
The shooting is under investigation by the NYPD’s Force Investigation Division, in addition to the State Attorney General’s Office of Special Investigations.