NYC stabbing spree leaves 3 dead, suspect charged with murder

NEW YORK - A seemingly random stabbing spree across Manhattan Monday morning claimed the lives of two men and a women, with the suspect, 51-year-old Ramon Rivera, now incustody and facing murder charges.

The violence began around 8:30 a.m. near West 19th Street and 8th Avenue, where Rivera allegedly stabbed a 36-year-old construction worker in the abdomen. The victim was rushed to Bellevue Hospital but did not survive.

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Two hours later, police say Rivera struck again on East 30th Street near the FDR Drive, attacking a 68-year-old man who was fishing along the East River. The man also succumbed to his injuries.

Just 30 minutes later, Rivera allegedly stabbed a 36-year-old woman multiple times on 42nd Street and First Avenue. She was pronounced dead at Cornell Medical Center.

"Three New Yorkers. Unprovoked attacks that left us searching for answers on how something like this could happen," NYC Mayor Eric Adams said at a news conference. He called the violence "a clear, clear example" of failures in the criminal justice system and elsewhere.

"No words exchanged. No property taken. Just attacked, viciously," said Joseph Kenny, the New York Police Department's chief of detectives. "He just walked up to them and began to attack them with the knives."

Surveillance footage captured Rivera shortly before the attacks, showing him putting on gloves and pulling a knife from his backpack. Police say the gloves seen in the footage match those found at one of the crime scenes, along with two knives.

A passing cab driver saw the third attack and alerted a police officer, officials said.

Authorities revealed that Rivera has a criminal history spanning three states and suffers from severe mental health issues.

So far, only one victim has been publicly identified: 36-year-old Angel Landi. The identities of the other two victims have not yet been released.

The bloodshed happened in a major city where, like in others, crime has taken a prominent place in political discourse and everyday concerns in the years since pandemic lockdowns emptied streets and spurred disorder. Killings in New York City so far in 2024 have declined 14% in two years, but serious assaults are up about 12%, according to police statistics.

Some recent stabbings in public places have drawn attention, including a fatal attack at the Coney Island subway station just weeks ago.

Adams, a Democrat, called Monday's violence "a clear, clear example" of failures in the criminal justice system and elsewhere.

The suspect in Monday's rampage, who apparently is homeless, had been sentenced in a criminal case a few months ago and was arrested in a grand larceny case last month, officials said.

The rampage came three years after a string of stabbings at various points along a subway line killed two people and wounded two others within a few hours.

In 2019, four people who were sleeping in doorways and sidewalks in Chinatown were beaten to death, and a fifth was seriously injured, early one Saturday morning.