Police Shoot Alleged Meat Cleaver Attacker Near Penn Station

MIDTOWN MANHATTAN, NY — Scores of emergency vehicles clogged 32nd Street between 6th and 7th avenues — just a block from Penn Station and Madison Square Garden — for more than an hour late Thursday afternoon after a man identified by police as 32-year-old Queens resident Akram Joudeh allegedly sliced an off-duty police officer across the face with a meat cleaver around 5 p.m.

Cops responded by firing 18 bullets, a few of which hit the attacker, according to the New York City Police Department (NYPD).

The off-duty officer suffered a six-inch gash to the face from Joudeh's 11-inch cleaver, police said. The officer was hospitalized in "serious condition" at the hospital with a "very significant" head injury, outgoing NYPD Commission Bill Bratton said Thursday evening, at what could very well be his last on-scene press conference as commissioner.

Although he was hit by several bullets, Joudeh was still alive Thursday night, according to Bratton. The alleged attacker was in "critical but stable condition" when headed into surgery around 7:15 p.m., he said.

Photos by Sarah Kauffman/Patch

Two more officers were injured amid the chaos, police said — although it was not clear whether the latter two came into direct contact with the cleaver.

Five people were transported to Bellevue Hospital after the attack in unknown condition, a spokesman for the Fire Department of the City of New York (FDNY) told Patch.

Here's the police narrative of the attack, from start to finish, as relayed by Chief of Department James O'Neill at the evening press conference:

Just before 5 p.m. Thursday, two uniformed officers from the NYPD's Midtown South precinct responded to reports of a hysterical man trying to remove a parking boot from his vehicle (which police believe he may have been using as lodging) at Broadway and 30th Street, O'Neill said. That's when the man, later identified as Joudeh, allegedly pulled an 11-inch meat cleaver from his waistband and began to run away from the officers. This set off a three-block foot chase through a crazy-crowded area of Midtown, during which additional officers from the NYPD's Transit Bureau joined in.

Eventually, one of the pursuing cops came in close enough contact with Joudeh to Taser him, O'Neill said — but "without apparent effect." Joudeh kept running along 32nd Street, the police chief said, and "mounted the front grill of a marked police car responding to the call."

In a final showdown, an off-duty detective in plainclothes, headed home from court via Penn Station, "tried to grab the cleaver" from Joudeh — but instead received a six-inch gash to the face. The mob of officers that had formed by that time fired a total of 18 shots Joudeh, "striking him several times," O'Neill said.

Pressed by reporters at the press conference as to whether police were justified in firing off 18 shots in a busy area of Midtown Manhattan, Bratton went on the defensive.

"If I may," the outgoing commission said, cutting in. "We have significant video of this incident. In my viewing of this video, and in conversations with officers at the hospital, I want to commend them for their performance."

Responding cops "fired sufficient rounds to stop the attacks on the officer," Bratton said, refusing to take further questions on the subject.

Pierre Damico, an NYC hairdresser and musician, was inside the Jack's dollar store at 110 West 32nd St. when he said he heard four to five gunshots a few feet away. The crowd of around 50 people at Jack's freaked out, he said: Some hit the floor while others ran, stampede style, toward the back door.

"Why would someone shoot on this street, in this neighborhood?" Damico asked in an interview shortly afterward, his pulse still racing.

Twitter users working in office buildings near the crime scene reported hearing gunshots, then seeing people scatter and run down the block. Some said their buildings were on lockdown after the shooting.

Dozens of police officers congregated along 32nd Street late Thursday to investigate. The street was closed to rush-hour traffic between 6th and 7th avenues.