A man slashed three people with a machete at Grand Central subway station on Saturday morning in what Police Commissioner Jessica S. Tisch called a random attack. A police officer then fatally shot the man, she said.
The episode began at 9:40 a.m. when the man, who had been seen acting erratically on a subway train, exited at the Grand Central-42nd Street Station, Ms. Tisch said at a news conference on Saturday at the station. He then slashed one person on a 7 train platform and two others on the uptown 4,5 and 6 platform before a police officer shot him, she said.
None of the victims have life-threatening injuries, she said.
The officers “gave clear demands, they attempted to de-escalate,” Ms. Tisch said, “and when that threat did not stop, they took decisive action to stop it and to protect New Yorkers on one of the busiest train platforms in the city.”
The slashings did not appear to be an act of terrorism, according to three law enforcement officials who were not authorized to speak publicly. Ms. Tisch said that the man who died, Anthony Griffin, 44, had been arrested three times before in New York City, but did not have a history of mental illness documented with the police. He called himself Lucifer after the attacks, she said.
Mr. Griffin had boarded a 7 train at the Vernon Boulevard station in Queens just 10 minutes before the attack and took the train to Grand Central, Ms. Tisch said. There, Mr. Griffin stabbed an 84-year-old man before heading upstairs to the northbound platform, where he slashed two more people, a 65-year-old man and a 70-year-old woman.
The 84-year-old man sustained “significant lacerations” to his head and face, Ms. Tisch said. The 65-year-old was also cut and suffered an open skull fracture. The woman was slashed on her shoulder, she said.
Soon after the attacks on the 4, 5 and 6 platform, a person in the station flagged down two detectives who were working in the station, Ms. Tisch said. When they arrived at the top of the stairs, they found one of the victims climbing the stairs.
And they saw Mr. Griffin on the platform below, holding the machete and repeating that he was Lucifer, the fallen angel. The officers ordered Mr. Griffin to drop his weapon at least 20 times and offered to get him help, Ms. Tisch said, but he refused to comply and instead moved toward the officers with the machete.
One of the officers shot Mr. Griffin in response, striking him twice, before rendering aid to him, she said.
Emergency medical workers took the three stabbing victims to Bellevue Hospital, where they were being treated for their injuries but were expected to survive, Ms. Tisch said.
Mr. Griffin was also taken to Bellevue, where he was later pronounced dead. The two officers were not injured in the attack, she said.
In a statement on social media, Mayor Zohran Mamdani thanked the officers for their work in subduing the attacker. “I’m grateful to the N.Y.P.D. for their quick response and for preventing additional violence,” he said. He added that an internal police investigation was underway and that the department would release the officers’ body-camera footage, as is standard with police shootings.
Ms. Tisch, who spoke forcefully, said the episode demonstrated the necessity of keeping police officers in the subway to protect New Yorkers from crime. The department recently dispatched 175 additional officers to patrol the subways, she said. In her proposed executive state budget for 2027, Gov. Kathy Hochul has allocated $77 million to increase police presence in the subway system.
“New Yorkers deserve to feel safe every time they step onto a train platform, and we will do everything it takes to protect them,” Ms. Hochul wrote in a social media post on Saturday responding to the attack.
Random acts of violence are rare in New York City’s subway system. But after a series of high-profile attacks during and soon after the Covid pandemic, many commuters have remained on edge. Crime in the subway has steadily declined over the past year, and 2025 was the safest year recorded since 2009, police officials said last week. This year, there have been 563 crimes reported in the transit system between Jan. 1 and April 5, seven fewer than the same period in 2025.
As the police fanned out across the station on Saturday afternoon, trains running in both directions on the 4, 5, 6 and 7 lines were diverted, the Metropolitan Transportation Authority said.
At the entrance to the Grand Central subway station, police officers and M.T.A. workers placed yellow police tape in the area around the turnstiles, barring commuters from entering.
One passenger, Aaron Parham, 51, said he had been on his way to the Frick Collection when he was promptly ushered out of the station by M.T.A. police officers.
“This isn’t normal,” said Mr. Parham, who has lived in New York for more than two decades. He said he had passed about 25 police officers on his way out of the station.
Douglas Miller and his wife, Jody Kelley, who live in Manhattan, had been heading to the uptown 4, 5 and 6 platform on Saturday morning on their way to the Guggenheim Museum after buying tickets two weeks in advance to visit the museum’s Gabriele Münter exhibition. When they approached an escalator leading to the station, they saw a metal barricade and officers ordering people to leave the area.
“Another day in New York,” Mr. Miller said as he and his wife walked toward the 51st Street subway station.
Maia Coleman is a reporter for The Times covering the New York Police Department and criminal justice in the New York area.
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