Video of NYC police killing machete-wielding man at Grand Central station released
NEW YORK (AP) — New York City police have released body-worn camera footage of officers shooting and killing a man armed with a machete. stabbed three people at the Grand Central subway stop last month.
video clip A photo posted on the department’s YouTube page on Friday shows officers confronting Anthony Griffin after he randomly cut down three people at the 42nd Street-Grand Central subway station, which connects to Grand Central Terminal.
The video shows uniformed officers identified as detectives Ryan Giuffre and Anthony Manetta confronting the 44-year-old man walking up the stairs with a large knife in his hand around 9:40 a.m. on April 11.
They repeatedly order Griffin to drop the gun, but Giuffre draws her gun as Griffin continues to hold the knife high near her head.
Griffin then retreats down the stairs, but begins advancing towards the officers with the knife still above his head as they begin to follow him.
“Nobody wants to hurt you,” Giuffre says in the video. “We can talk about this. Come down. Come down. Dude, I won’t ask you again. Please. Please. Please. Come down!”
But Griffin continues to yell and move erratically toward the officers, his large knife in the air.
At one point he says, “I don’t want to be here. Shoot me.” “I am Lucifer,” he says in another.
Giuffre then fired two shots at Griffin, who immediately fell to the ground. The person who was taken to the hospital was declared dead.
During the incident, officers ordered Griffin to drop the knife at least 20 times, but Griffin refused to comply, Police Commissioner Jessica Tisch said.
“Our officers were confronted by an armed individual who had previously injured multiple people and continued to pose a threat,” he said. “They gave clear orders. They tried to de-escalate tensions. And when the threat didn’t end, they took decisive action to stop it and protect New Yorkers on one of the city’s busiest train platforms.”
Tisch said the three stabbing victims — an 84-year-old man, a 65-year-old man and a 70-year-old woman — suffered injuries including “severe lacerations to the head and face” and a skull fracture, but the wounds were not life-threatening.
