NBC New York’s Chris Jose has the latest from Jamaica, Queens.
The man believed to be responsible for a string of frightening unprovoked stabbings in Queens has been brought into custody, according to a senior NYPD official.
The suspect was identified by police Wednesday night as Jermain Riguer. Word of the arrest came hours after cops released surveillance video and images of the alleged suspect connected to the series of knifings around the Jamaica neighborhood.
The most recent incident occurred Wednesday morning when three people were stabbed in separate incidents, according to police.
A man was walking his wife to work on 134th Avenue when Riguer allegedly ran up behind the couple and stabbed the man without saying a word. He then ran to 161st Street, where he encountered his next victim: a 41-year-old man who had left his home in order to move his car. Police said he stabbed the victim in his abdomen.
Both victims were hospitalized.
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Less than a half hour later, Riguer struck again, according to police. A 36-year-old man was going to work when he hopped on a northbound MTA bus on Guy Brewer Boulevard and 115th Avenue.
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Once aboard, the man asked Riguer if he could sit next to him, to which he said yes. After other seats became available during the ride, the suspect asked the man to move, but the victim declined to do so, according to police.
The two began arguing and got off the bus on Parson Boulevard and Archer Avenue, where Riguer stabbed the man, police said.
A shop owner said he was sweeping the floors of his store when a victim in one of the most recent attacks stumbled in and asked for help.
"I thought he fall on street and he said some young guy stabbed his back and he run," said Bruce An.
The wounded man in a plaid coat stood on his own as he talked with police, when An saw him open his jacket.
"Later, [an] officer come and open his jacket — there was a lot of blood on his back," he told NBC New York.
The incidents started on Jan. 8, when a 61-year-old man was stabbed in the lower back as he was walking alone on 137th Avenue after 6 p.m., police said at the press conference. As he was approaching the intersection at 157th Street, he felt a pain as if he had been punched in the lower back, but quickly realized he had been stabbed.
According to police, Riguer laughed in the victim's face after stabbing him. A witness called 911 and the victim was taken to Jamaica Hospital with a puncture wound to his right kidney.
The suspect allegedly struck again a week later, just after midnight on Tuesday, when a woman was returning home from work on Guy Brewer Boulevard. The victim told News 4 she had just gotten off a Q111 bus and was just steps from home when she noticed a man cross the street and start walking behind her. She says she didn't think anything was awry.
Suddenly, he was right behind her, she said, and she felt a sharp puncture on the right side of her back. The man mumbled something but she was wearing AirPods and couldn't hear him, she said. The next thing she knew, she was on the ground and he ran off, slipping on the snow and ice. She heard helicopters searching for him later.
The 41-year-old woman says she managed to walk the last bit of the way toward her house, where her husband called an ambulance. She had emergency surgery to ensure no organs were punctured in the attack. They weren't, she says, so she got some stitches and was able to return home.
Police said Riguer "appeared to be talking to himself...speaking gibberish" leading up to and during the attack on the woman. Minutes later, he was seen on surveillance video stabbing the front window of a nearby bodega with a hunting knife.
None of the victims suffered injuries considered to be life-threatening, police said, and each is expected to recover. Police said none of the attacks were provoked.
Riguer is believed to be linked each of the incidents, and could be connected to an additional stabbing in Brooklyn. That's where a man was stabbed in the chest while aboard a northbound J train in Williamsburg, according to police. The suspect in that incident was said to fit the description of the man in the other incidents, but police were "not willing to commit is being part of the pattern."
Police also said they were looking into another similar incident on a D train at 59th Street and Columbus Avenue in Manhattan, but do not believe it was connected to the other stabbings.
Police said Riguer, an employee at Woodhull Hospital in Brooklyn, could be seen in the surveillance video wearing some type of lanyard, possibly with some type of ID on it, but police have not been able to identify what is said on the lanyard. Police also said they believed that the attacker would return to the area of Guy Brewer Boulevard, as all of the attacks (except for the subway incident) occurred within a few blocks of one another.
It wasn't immediately clear if police believe there may be more attacks, nor was a possible motive given.
Police had been offering a $3,500 reward for any info that led to an arrest. Anyone with information is asked to call Crime Stoppers at 1-800-577-TIPS.
