An unhinged attacker slashed a man and a woman in back-to-back unprovoked knife attacks in Grand Central Station, police said Wednesday.
The chaos began when the assailant pulled the emergency brake on an uptown No. 5 train that had just pulled into the Grand Central-42nd St. subway at about 10:05 p.m. Tuesday, MTA officials said. He got off the train and slashed a 42-year-old man in the left wrist without warning.
The stabber fled up a flight of stairs and out the turnstile before slashing a 26-year-old woman in the neck in the station’s mezzanine.
Medics took both victims to Bellevue Hospital in stable condition.
The attacker took the escalator into Grand Central Terminal, where he was stopped by an MTA officer for acting erratically. A knife was recovered from the suspect’s jacket.
Cops charged 28-year-old Jason Sargeant with assault, reckless endangerment, menacing, harassment and weapon possession. He lives in Flatbush, Brooklyn, according to cops.
Speaking to reporters in Harlem before serving Christmas meals at the National Action Network’s headquarters Wednesday, Mayor Adams praised law enforcement for catching the suspect, whom he said suffered from a history of mental illness.
“We made the apprehension. We did our job. We had the omnipresence of uniformed officers there. But this appears to be a person who had a mental health history in the past,” the mayor said. “This clearly is a person that needs help.”
Adams said addressing random acts of violence will be a priority for his administration to press in Albany this year.
“As we go back to Albany, we need to look at involuntary removals. As we go back to Albany, we need to look at more long-term housing beds,” he said, referring to policy proposals he has floated for addressing New York’s mental health crisis.
NYPD data shows crime in the subway system is up significantly compared with before the COVID-19 pandemic, with a 20% jump in violent crime underground in 2023 compared with 2019.
