NEW YORK (WCBS 880) — The man linked to the deadly stabbing spree on the city’s subway system was known to have mental health issues and Mayor Bill de Blasio on Wednesday said they have launched an investigation to figure out how he slipped through the cracks.
Over the weekend, four people were attacked on the A train, with two of them dying from their injuries.
Police arrested 21-year-old Rigoberto Lopez in connection to the attacks and say the man was arrested at least four times in recent years.
Authorities say in at least two of those cases, he has been suffering from mental distress and was seeing a social worker prior to the pandemic to get help.
Mayor Bill de Blasio said the history of arrests and mental illness now makes this case very different now that know the attacker “was clearly diagnosed with a mental health issue – not just indicated by an individual officer but, diagnosed with a mental health issue, or had a history of a specific violent act.”
The mayor notes that it’s possible Lopez slipped through the cracks given that his “situation did not sound the kind of alarms that we have seen in some other cases.”
Nevertheless, de Blasio called the attacks horrific and said the city and law enforcement need to learn from the incident to better improve safety on the subways and provide better mental health services to all New Yorkers in need.
“What happen here was horrible and we gotta learn from every situation. We got to constantly refine the ability of different agencies to work together,” de Blasio said. “But, we’ll get more information when we get the final review of everything we know about how he was handled and we’ll talk about that publicly.”
Following the weekend stabbing spree, the MTA requested that the NYPD send 1,000 more officers to patrol the transit system. The request was later approved with the department agreeing to send 644 additional officers.
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