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Police at the scene in Queens
Photo: Kyle Mazza / IMAGO / TheNews2
In New York, a man allegedly stabbed four family members with a steak knife. Two police officers found the 38-year-old alleged perpetrator on Sunday morning in a house in the Far Rockaway neighborhood in the New York borough of Queens after a cousin alerted the police, said the head of the New York Police Department (NYPD), Jeffrey Maddrey. The man then attacked the police officers with a knife, whereupon one of the two shot him.
The police had received the call from a teenage girl related to the alleged perpetrator, it said. She had been on the phone looking for help and said her cousin was killing family members, the New York Daily News reported.
The motive for the crime has yet to be clarified, but there are indications of a domestic dispute. At the scene of the crime, the police found a seriously injured eleven-year-old child in front of the house. It died despite being rushed to hospital.
In the house itself, there was initially a fire, the police said. The emergency services found the bodies of the three other victims: a 44-year-old woman, a man in his 30s and a twelve-year-old child. A 61-year-old woman has suffered serious stab wounds and is being treated in hospital. The two injured police officers were also hospitalized.
The alleged perpetrator had lived in the New York borough of Bronx and had already been arrested in the past for domestic violence, it said.
czl/AFP