Authorities said the suspect wounded three riders in the subway complex before advancing on officers, who had ordered him dozens of times to drop the weapon.
NEW YORK, N.Y. — A man armed with a machete wounded three people at the 42nd Street-Grand Central subway station on Saturday morning before police shot and killed him when he advanced toward officers on one of the busiest train platforms in the city, officials said.
The violence rattled the transit hub because it unfolded quickly, appeared random and shut down service at a major Manhattan station during a busy part of the day. Police Commissioner Jessica Tisch identified the suspect as Anthony Griffin, 44, and said he had already injured multiple people by the time officers confronted him. The three victims, an 84-year-old man, a 70-year-old woman and a 65-year-old man, were taken to hospitals with injuries that officials said were serious but not believed to be life-threatening. The shooting also sent two police officers to the hospital in stable condition.
According to police, the sequence began before the attack reached Manhattan. Tisch said Griffin entered the subway system at the Vernon Boulevard station in Queens at about 9:30 a.m. and rode a No. 7 train toward Grand Central while acting erratically and repeatedly saying he was “Lucifer.” By about 9:40 a.m., officers were responding to reports of stabbings in progress at the 42nd Street-Grand Central station. Officials said Griffin first slashed an 84-year-old man on the No. 7 platform, leaving him with significant cuts to the head and face. Police said Griffin then moved upstairs to the 4, 5 and 6 platform, where he slashed a 70-year-old woman in the shoulder and a 65-year-old man, who suffered similar head and face injuries along with an open skull fracture. All three victims were taken to hospitals in stable condition, officials said.
Police said two detectives working a transit security detail encountered one of the wounded victims as they moved toward the scene and then came face to face with Griffin on the platform. Tisch said officers ordered him at least 20 times to drop the weapon and tried to calm the situation, even telling him they would get him help. Instead, she said, Griffin kept the machete in his hand and moved toward the officers with the blade extended. One officer then fired twice. Griffin was taken to Bellevue Hospital, where he was pronounced dead. Tisch said the officers were confronting an armed man who had already hurt several people and was still posing a threat. Authorities said the full encounter was recorded on body-worn cameras, and the shooting is expected to be reviewed through the department’s normal investigative process.
Officials have described the attack as random, and that assessment has shaped the public response as much as the violence itself. Chief of Transit Joseph Gulotta said there was no indication the victims knew Griffin. That matters in a station like Grand Central, where thousands of riders pass through the platforms every day and most people around an unfolding crime are strangers to one another. The randomness also helps explain why the attack spread fear so quickly through the station once the first slashing was reported. A commuter who was entering the station told The Associated Press he heard bangs through his headphones and then saw a wall of people rushing back toward the turnstiles. He said he had never seen a crowd move that way before. Police did not publicly identify the victims Saturday, and they did not say whether Griffin had any known connection to Grand Central beyond arriving there on the train shortly before the attack.
The location sharpened the sense of danger. The 42nd Street-Grand Central stop is not a quiet outpost or an isolated platform. It is a central interchange connected to one of the city’s best-known transit buildings and packed with riders, workers and visitors on a normal Saturday. That setting meant the attack played out in a place designed for heavy movement, not confinement, which is one reason eyewitnesses described sudden panic as people tried to reverse course up stairs and through turnstiles. Police photographs published by the Associated Press from the scene showed investigators working around blood on the platform and the weapon that authorities said was used in the attack. Officials also said the morning investigation disrupted travel for hours. The NYPD told travelers to avoid the area while police worked the scene, and the Metropolitan Transportation Authority later showed trains bypassing the station before normal stops resumed in the afternoon.
Several pieces of the case remain unclear even after the police briefing. Officials said Griffin had three prior unsealed arrests, but they did not publicly detail those cases at the afternoon news conference described in the reporting reviewed for this article. Authorities also did not explain why he boarded the train in Queens, whether he had been in any earlier conflict that morning or whether investigators believe he chose his victims completely at random or simply attacked the first people he encountered. Police likewise did not release a fuller timeline showing the minutes between Griffin’s arrival on the train and the first assault on the platform. Those unanswered questions are likely to matter as detectives reconstruct his path through the station, review surveillance footage and body camera video, and interview witnesses who were scattered across more than one platform level during the attack.
Public officials moved quickly to frame the incident as both a transit safety emergency and a test of police response under pressure. Tisch praised the officers’ actions, saying they gave repeated commands and tried to de-escalate before using deadly force. Gov. Kathy Hochul said she was grateful to the officers who acted quickly and said the state was working closely with the NYPD as the investigation continued. The official response, though, will not end with those statements. A police shooting inside a crowded subway station brings at least two parallel tracks: the criminal investigation into the stabbings and the internal review of the officers’ use of force. Investigators will now have to sort through platform video, body camera footage, radio traffic and witness accounts while the city also answers the broader public question that follows every random transit attack: how a routine trip through a major station turned violent so fast.
By Saturday night, the station had reopened to normal stops, the three victims were hospitalized in stable condition and Griffin was dead after the police shooting. The next major step is expected to be the release of more investigative detail from the NYPD, including a fuller account of Griffin’s movements and the officer encounter on the platform.