Person of interest in custody after Queens stabbing, officials say

Hours after beginning a citywide manhunt aimed at capturing the attacker in a series of random stabbings in Queens, New York City police said Wednesday evening they had a person of interest in custody.

The development followed a news conference at which top police officials said they were flooding the city with officers in an all-out effort to arrest a man they had linked to five stabbings within blocks of each other in the past nine days. southeast of Queens. .

“We have a strong street presence,” John M. Chell, chief of police patrol, said at the news conference. “And it will remain that way until we get this person off the streets.”

No further information was provided about the arrested person on Wednesday evening.

Three of the stabbings occurred early Wednesday; one happened just after midnight on Tuesday; and the fifth occurred on Jan. 8, officials said. None of the victims suffered life-threatening injuries, but the attacks were still disturbing. Each of the people stabbed was doing a routine activity, such as going to work, when they were attacked.

In the first stabbing, officials said, a 61-year-old man was near the intersection of 134th Avenue and 157th Street around 6:30 p.m. when he felt “like he had been punched in the back,” said Joseph Kenny, the Dat the head of police detectives said at the press conference. The man was taken to Jamaica Hospital and treated for a stab wound to his kidney.

“The suspect actually laughed at the victim after stabbing him,” Chief Kenny said, noting that the weapon used in all the attacks was a hunting knife.

The victim of the second attack, a 34-year-old woman, was returning from work by bus just after midnight Tuesday when she was attacked, officials said. After she got off the bus at Guy Brewer Boulevard and 134th Avenue, a man ran up behind her and punched her in the right side of her back. She soon realized she had been stabbed.

The third and fourth attacks occurred within about five minutes of each other Wednesday morning, officials said. About 7:30 a.m., a 74-year-old man was walking to work with his wife along 134th Avenue when the same suspect ran up behind the couple and stabbed the man once in the back, police said.

The attacker then ran to 161st Street, where he encountered a 41-year-old man who had just left his home to move his car, officials said. The suspect approached the man, stabbed him once in the stomach and ran off.

The fifth attack occurred about a half-hour later at the intersection of Parsons Boulevard and Archer Avenue after a dispute between the stabbing suspect and the victim, a 36-year-old man on his way to work, officials said. He was stabbed once in the back.