A 51-year-old man stabbed two people in broad daylight in the vicinity of Central Park on Manhattan’s Upper West Side on Thursday afternoon before being taken into custody, the police said.
The assailant, identified as Raul Morales, attacked the two men in separate incidents on Central Park West and Amsterdam Avenue at around 1:30 p.m., leaving them injured on the street, the police said. Both were expected to survive.
Mr. Morales first walked up to a 57-year-old man on West 84th and Central Park West and stabbed him in the back with a knife, according to a spokesman for the Police Department. He then went to West 86th Street and Amsterdam, the spokesman said, where he approached another man, this time stabbing him in the torso with a screwdriver.
It was not immediately clear what led to the midday attack in the heart of the Upper West Side, a residential neighborhood with low crime rates. But on Thursday, Police Commissioner Jessica Tisch said that Mr. Morales had yelled “Allahu akbar” as he attacked both men, according to accounts from the victims and witnesses.
Ms. Tisch said the department was evaluating whether the stabbings had been intended as hate crimes and that detectives were still investigating Mr. Morales’s motive. While Mr. Morales did not have a history of mental health issues documented with the Police Department, she added, it appeared that his mental state might have played a role in the attacks.
The first victim was identified as a 57-year-old Asian man, Chok Sung, according to a law enforcement official with knowledge of the matter. The second victim was Moshe Yezhak Grunhaus, a 50-year-old Jewish man, the official said.
Both men were taken by emergency medical workers to Mount Sinai’s Morningside location.
After the stabbings, Mr. Morales walked to his home in a New York City Housing Authority building on Amsterdam Avenue, according to a second law enforcement official with knowledge of the matter. He went inside his apartment on the 11th floor, and was later taken into custody there by officers in the Emergency Service Unit.
“I want to commend the bravery of a good Samaritan who led our officers to the location where the perpetrator was hiding, as well as our NYPD cops who brought an end to the incident without further injuries,” Ms. Tisch said in a statement on social media.
Marianna Ellenberg, a professor, said she was taking her father to a doctor’s appointment in the neighborhood on Thursday afternoon when she came across the aftermath of the stabbing. As their car turned from 84th Street onto Central Park West, Ms. Ellenberg said she looked out the window to see a man “standing still like a statue” with something sticking out his body.
Michael Jacobs and Morris Dahan, who are members of Manhattan Shomrim, a voluntary neighborhood patrol group, said they were called to the neighborhood by a bystander and arrived to find Mr. Grunhaus lying wounded on the ground.
“He was on the floor with a screwdriver in his chest,” said Mr. Dahan. He and Mr. Jacobs called 911 immediately.
Stella Raine Chu contributed reporting.
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