The suspect cops say stabbed five men in an unprovoked spree in Manhattan’s Penn Station was high on drugs during the attacks and appears to have mental health issues, police sources said Monday.
The suspect is apparently homeless and has prior arrests in New Jersey for assault and drugs, sources said. His rampage started about 7 p.m. Sunday in the boarding area for New Jersey Transit.
The victim were rushed by medics to Bellevue Hospital with wounds described as non life-threatening. One victim is in serious condition while the others suffered moderate or minor wounds.
The suspect was taken to the same hospital for a psychiatric evaluation. Charges against him are pending.
One of the victims, Henry Obadiah, 60, told ABC7 New York he had returned from the Jersey Shore and was leaving Penn Station when he saw “two people tussling with each other.”
“I didn’t think anything of it and I’m walking by and the guy, the crazy guy locked eyes with me and then he just came at me with a roundhouse and got me,” Obadiah said. “I thought it was a punch. He got me right in the face. The first thing I thought I was going to go after him and then I heard this guy in the escalator, he goes, ‘He’s got a knife, he’s got a knife!’”
The other victims are men ages 30, 32, 52 and another 60-year-old man, police sources said.
Amtrak police officers arrested the suspect moments after he attacked his fifth victim. Cops recovered the knife the attacker used.
The suspect has one prior arrest in New York City, in the East Village on June 19th, 2008, for misdemeanor drug possession, a police source said.
He has been arrested six times in New Jersey, between February 2022 and last month on charges including aggravated Assault, weapon possession, narcotics, domestic assault and criminal mischief.
Prior to the stabbings, he entered Penn Station at Seventh Ave and 31st St., a police source said.
Blood was splattered across the hall in the “pit area” of the NJ Transit section of the station, said Adil Kha, 21, who works in a store in the station and saw one man stabbed in the face.
“I saw a guy that was really bleeding badly,” Kha said. “It was all on the floor and someone was calling for help and he just fell down.”