New York City police have released body-worn camera footage of officers shooting and killing a machete-wielding man who stabbed three people at a Grand Central subway stop last month.
The video clip posted on the department’s YouTube page Friday shows officers confronting Anthony Griffin after he had randomly slashed three people at the 42nd Street-Grand Central subway station, which connects to Grand Central Terminal.
The uniformed officers, identified in the video as detectives Ryan Giuffre and Anthony Manetta, are seen encountering the 44-year-old as he walks up a stairwell holding a large knife at around 9:40 a.m. on April 11.
They order Griffin to drop the weapon multiple times, but Giuffre draws his gun as Griffin continues to hold the knife high near his head.
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Griffin then retreats back down the stairs but starts moving toward the officers with the knife still overhead when they start to pursue him.
“Nobody wants to hurt you,” Giuffre says in the video. “We can talk about it. Get down. Get down. Dude, I’m not going to ask you again. Please. Please. Please. Get down!”
But Griffin continues shouting and moving erratically toward the officers with the large blade raised up.
“I don’t want to be here. Shoot me,” he says at one point. “I am Lucifer,” he says at another.
Giuffre then fires two shots at Griffin, who immediately drops to the ground. He was taken to the hospital, where he was pronounced dead.
Police Commissioner Jessica Tisch said at the time of the incident that the officers ordered Griffin to drop the knife at least 20 times but he refused to comply.
“Our officers were confronted with an armed individual who had already injured multiple people and was continuing to pose a threat,” she said. “They gave clear commands. They attempted to de-escalate. 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 three stabbing victims — an 84 year-old male, 65-year-old male and 70-year-old female — sustained injuries including “significant lacerations to the head and face” and a skull fracture, though the wounds were not considered life-threatening, Tisch said.
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