A man attacked four girls with a meat cleaver in a Brooklyn home on Sunday morning before he was shot by the police, who rushed to the house after one of the injured children called 911, the police said.
All four girls, ages 8, 11, 13 and 16, have serious slash and stab wounds but are expected to survive, Jessica Tisch, the police commissioner, said at a news conference near the home in the Bensonhurst neighborhood of Brooklyn.
The man, Longqian Chen, 49, who the police believe is related to the girls and was alone with them and a boy, was taken to a nearby hospital in critical condition, Commissioner Tisch said.
She praised the 11-year-old girl, who hid in a room to call 911, as well as the officers who kicked down a locked door to reach the children and police communications technicians who were able to track the phone the girl had used to identify the home’s address.
Those actions, the commissioner said, “absolutely saved the lives of the young girls.”
“This could have ended very differently,” she added.
It was unclear how Mr. Chen was related to the children and why he attacked them. The police had never received a report of domestic violence at the home, John Chell, the chief of department, said. But Commissioner Tisch said that, according to family members, Mr. Chen had a history of mental illness.
The 911 call came in around 10:15 a.m., Commissioner Tisch said. The 11-year-old said on the phone that Mr. Chen had stabbed her and her siblings in their home on 84th Street near 17th Avenue.
When officers and emergency medical workers arrived, a boy, who was not injured and who had run to a neighbor’s house to ask for help, opened the outside door and led them into a vestibule. The officers could hear the children screaming behind an apartment door, the commissioner said.
The officers forced open the door, which was locked, and saw Mr. Chen holding the meat cleaver, covered in blood, Commissioner Tisch said. There was blood on the walls and the floor, she said.
The officers ordered Mr. Chen several times to drop the weapon, but he refused and moved toward the officers, she said.
Two officers, who fired seven total rounds, shot him, Commissioner Tisch said.
The cleaver was recovered along with a bloody knife found in another room, she said.
Susan Zhuang, a City Council member who represents a neighboring district and speaks Mandarin, said the stabbings had rocked the close-knit Asian American community in south Brooklyn, which she said has little access to mental health support. Most of the residents, Ms. Zhuang said, do not speak English.
“It’s very hard, and they don’t know how to get the resources,” she said.
Neighbors, who described the area as being safe, family-oriented and diverse, said it was surreal that violence of this kind had happened there.
“It’s shocking,” said Suk Ma, a woman in her 50s who lives nearby and whose children live next door. “I’ve been here 30 years, and nothing like this ever happened.”
Chelsia Rose Marcius is a criminal justice reporter for The Times, covering the New York Police Department. More about Chelsia Rose Marcius
Alyce McFadden is a reporter covering New York City and a member of the 2024-25 Times Fellowship class, a program for journalists early in their careers. More about Alyce McFadden
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