Five young girls were reportedly slashed with a meat cleaver in Brooklyn, New York, before police shot and caught him after one of the girls called 911.
In the early hours of Sunday, April 6, around 10:15 a.m., the New York Police Department (NYPD) arrived at 1671 84th Street after an 11-year-old girl called 911 to report a “assault in progress.” She told police that her uncle had stabbed her and her siblings, NYPD Commissioner Jessica Tisch said later that same day at a news conference.
People from 911 were able to find the girl’s phone even though she didn’t know her address. Tisch said that when police arrived at the home in the Bensonhurst neighborhood, a “uninjured child” let them into the first floor of the building.
The police then broke down the door to the girl’s apartment and went inside. The police commissioner said they saw a “man standing near the entrance holding a large meat cleaver covered in blood.”
“The police told the man several times to drop the gun,” Tisch said, adding that the suspect “refused and moved toward them.”
Then, Tisch said, two cops fired seven rounds at the suspect and hit him, ending “the threat.” Four girls, ages 8, 11, 13, and 16, were found inside the apartment with “serious slash and stab wounds.”
Longqian Chen, 49, has been identified as the guy who did it. The NYPD said he is thought to be “a relative.” He was taken to a nearby hospital on April 6 in very bad shape, Tisch told reporters.
People asked the NYPD to explain how to spell the man’s name, but they didn’t answer right away.
“All four children are expected to live at this point, thank God,” Tisch said at the news briefing. “However, things could have gone very differently.”
The police commissioner praised the first responders and then talked about the “heroics of the children involved.” He mentioned the 11-year-old victim who called 911 while she “hid in a room” and the “young, uninjured boy” who told a neighbor what was going on. The police officers who were hurt were taken to the hospital to be checked out. Tisch said they are also “going to be fine.”
After some time, police have found two knives at the scene: a “large cleaver” on the man and “another bloody knife” in a room. Family members told the NYPD that the suspect had a “history of mental illness,” but the reason for the crime is “still under investigation.”
On April 6, police told reporters that there was no past of domestic violence at the home.
“Right now, four children are still alive thanks to the quick thinking and strong action of your NYPD officers and EMTs.” “I want to thank and praise everyone who helped,” Tisch said.
The attack was first written about in the New York Post and the New York Daily News. The Post talked to a neighbor named Maria who said she saw a girl “covered in blood” and then “another girl” in the same situation.
“I was shaking.” “I’m still shaking,” the friend said. “I don’t see them often.” They moved here recently. I’ve lived here for seven years, and a lot of new people are moving in.
A video shared by the Post also showed State Assemblyman Lester Chang telling local media that a “male perpetrator” had been “shot by police” after “several” children were found covered in blood.
After being shot by police, the subject was taken out on a stretcher and shown to the public by The Post. The news source also put out a picture of what looked like a victim outside, who was covered in blood.
A neighbor named Humbert Huerta told the news source, “They brought out a guy on a stretcher who was all bloody and didn’t have a shirt on.” “They shot him twice, and I don’t know who it was.” He was taken out and put in an ambulance.
