A man wielding a hatchet attacked four rookie New York City police officers while they were posing for a picture on a street in Queens.
The attacker was shot and killed after he was able to strike one of the officers in the head and another in the arm.
Unfortunately, stray bullets from the police officer also hit a 29-year-old woman in the lower portion of her back as she was walking half a block away along a commercial part of Jamaica Avenue.
The identity of the man was not immediately identified. His motive for attacking the police officers is also not yet determined, according to police commissioner William Bratton.
The police was able to recover the 18-inch, blue-handled hatchet that the man used to attack the police officers, a picture of which was displayed by Bratton in a news conference held at the Jamaica Hospital Medical Center.
Police Academy fresh graduate Kenneth Healey was the police officer that was struck in the head. The 25-year-old is in critical but stable condition even with the serious injury. Joseph Meeker, the police officer who was hit in the arm, is expected to be released soon. The woman that was hit by the stray bullet is also receiving treatment at the hospital.
The incident happened along the sidewalk, in front of a department store. A passerby asked to take a picture of the four uniformed police officers, who agreed.
While the officers posed for the picture, a man wearing a green, hooded jacket emerged from further down the block and pulled out the hatchet from inside his clothes. The man then raised the weapon over his head and struck the police officers, apparently without saying even a single word.
The attacker first struck Meeker in the arm, then swung again to hit Healey in the head in what seemed to be a deadly slash, according to witnesses.
The two other police officers had no choice but to draw their guns and fired several times at the attacker, who was killed.
Bratton said that there appears to be connection between the passerby that asked for the photograph and the attacker. The passerby has been coordinating with the authorities in the investigation.
When Bratton was asked if there was a possibility that the attack was connected to terrorism, Bratton said that there are currently no facts that would point to that conclusion.
"I think certainly the heightened concern is relative to that type of assault based on what just happened in Canada," Bratton said, referring to the attack in Canada's National War Memorial that killed Nathan Cirillo right before shots were fired in the Parliament halls.
