NEW YORK — Someone ran away with a knife after a crime a weekend police shooting at a New York City subway station, police said Monday.
An image of the folding knife, which has a blade about the width of a man’s palm, was released Sunday night by the New York City Police Department. The department said a man threatened two officers with the knife before they opened fire shortly after 3 p.m., wounding him, one of the officers and two passengers.
On Monday, police said the knife was taken from the scene by another man around 3:35 p.m. Sunday. The department is now looking for that man and released an image of a person wearing a blue hat with the logo of the defunct Hartford Whalers hockey team.
A video posted online by a bystander after the shooting showed a chaotic scene. Angry passengers were fleeing, police were running to help the wounded, and the wounded officer suddenly realized he had been hit by a bullet, too.
The scene at Brooklyn’s Sutter Avenue station began at 3:04 p.m., when the two officers confronted the 37-year-old man with the knife. They initially followed him to the platform after seeing him enter without paying, Chief Jeffrey Maddrey said at a news conference Sunday.
Maddrey said the officers told the man to stop, but he verbally threatened them and they noticed he had a knife. They followed him onto a train pulling into the station and fired two Tasers, but neither one incapacitated him. The man advanced toward the officers with the knife when both officers fired multiple shots, he said.
The man was hit multiple times and was still in stable condition in hospital on Monday. A passenger, a 49-year-old man, was hit in the head and was hospitalized in critical condition. Another, a 26-year-old woman, suffered a graze wound.
The injured police officer was hit under the armpit and shot in the back, but is expected to make a full recovery.
Police and Metropolitan Transportation Authority officials say the confrontation, including the officers being threatened with the knife, was captured on video. They have not released the footage.