NEW YORK (1010 WINS/WCBS 880) – The NYPD arrested two suspected serial stabbers in the past day—one believed to have targeted six people at random in Brooklyn and Queens, and another accused of stabbing two subway riders at stops in Manhattan and the Bronx.
Mayor Eric Adams joined NYPD brass at 1 Police Plaza on Thursday to announce the two arrests, including of Jermain Rigueur, who police said faces charges of attempted murder, felony assault and criminal possession of a weapon in the stabbing of five people in Queens. He’s also expected to be charged for a sixth stabbing at a Brooklyn subway station Wednesday.
"He attacked six individuals," Adams told reporters. "It didn't appear he was looking to stop anytime soon, and thank God we have no one that lost his or her life because of this incident, but it did send real fears throughout our entire city, so it was crucial we apprehend him and bring him to justice."
Rigueur, 27, worked as a greeter at NYC Health + Hospitals/Woodhull in Bedford–Stuyvesant, officials said, adding that he had no criminal record and had passed a background check by the hospital.
Indeed, police said he hasn’t indicated any motive for the attacks and that he doesn’t appear to have a history of mental illness. The victims seem to have been targeted at random; all of them are expected to survive. Police said a hunting knife used in the attacks was recovered during his arrest.
A trail of surveillance video, witness accounts and "good old fashioned police work" led investigators Wednesday to the Springfield Gardens home of Rigueur, who police believe is behind five unprovoked stabbings in Queens this month, all but one of them in his neighborhood. The victims include a 61-year-old man stabbed Jan. 8; a 34-year-old woman stabbed Tuesday morning; two men, ages 74 and 41, stabbed within minutes of each other Wednesday morning; and a 36-year-old man stabbed as he sat beside the suspect on a bus in Jamaica less than a half-hour after the attacks on the two men.
Rigueur has also been linked to, but not yet charged in, a sixth stabbing Wednesday morning at the Myrtle Avenue station in Bedford-Stuyvesant, police said. In that case, a 28-year-old man was knifed on a J train. He suffered non-life-threatening injuries.
A second man was also nabbed Wednesday in a separate and unrelated subway stabbing pattern in Midtown Manhattan and the Bronx, NYPD Chief of Transit Michael Kemper said.
That man, who has only been identified as a 27-year-old Queens resident, allegedly stabbed two subway riders unprovoked Wednesday morning. He has multiple prior arrests, including five arrests in the past 12 months for assault and sex crimes, according to cops. Charges against him are pending.
The first victim, a 42-year-old man, was riding a D train at the 59th Street–Columbus Circle station at 6 a.m. when a man came up and stabbed him in the right shoulder, police said.
About 90 minutes later, a 19-year-old man was riding a 2 train at the East 174th Street stop in the Bronx when he was stabbed in the left arm by the same man, police said.
Investigators used video to link the two stabbings to the same suspect and get the suspect's image out to patrol officers, who ultimately arrested the suspect shortly before 7:30 a.m. Thursday as they responded to a commotion at the Bedford Park Boulevard station in the Bronx. He allegedly ran away from the cops, but they gave chase through the station and took him into custody. Police said he was wearing the same clothing seen on surveillance video and in possession of two knives.
Meanwhile, police said Thursday that they're searching for even more suspects in other random attacks in the transit system in recent days, as well as the gunman who fatally shot a grandfather trying to break up a fight over loud music on a train in Brownsville.