Knife-wielding maniac goes on ‘unprovoked’ NYC stabbing spree, leaving 1 woman, 2 men dead
A blood-covered lunatic toting two knives trekked across Manhattan in a savage broad-daylight stabbing spree that left a woman and two men dead Monday, cops said.
The sick suspected stabber – a mentally ill homeless man with eight past arrests in New York City alone – was stopped by a hero cop thanks to the help of good Samaritans, including a cab driver and a British tourist, said NYPD Chief of Detectives Joe Kenny and police sources.
Ramon Rivera, 51, was identified by sources as the person of interest in custody, seen with a long beard and unwieldy hair in a grizzled mugshot obtained by The Post. Police have no other suspect in the spate of “unprovoked” random attacks, said Mayor Eric Adams during a morning briefing.
“Today, we have three innocent New Yorkers, just going about their lives, who were the victim of a terrible, terrible assault,” he said. “It is a clear, clear example of the criminal justice system, mental health system that continues to fail New Yorkers.”
Surveillance footage obtained by The Post shows a bearded man matching Rivera’s description put a long knife in his sweatshirt pocket as he stood outside a West 19th Street building in Chelsea – roughly 20 minutes before what police said was his first attack in the deadly spree.
The hours-long frenzy stretched from Chelsea and crosstown to the East River and left a 36-year-old construction worker and 68-year-old man who was fishing dead, Kenny said.
The third victim – a 36-year-old woman – was stabbed multiple times and succumbed to her injuries at the hospital Monday night, sources said.
Cops were still piecing together the mad stabber’s movements, but it appears he walked at least part of the way during the blood-soaked rampage spanning both the West and East sides of Manhattan.
The bloody attacks erupted around 8:20 a.m. when the suspect walked up to the construction worker in front of 444 West 19th Street in Chelsea, and knifed him in the stomach, police said.
The construction worker was rushed to Bellevue Hospital, where he died, cops said.
A blood-stained blue towel remained on the sidewalk, where the victim collapsed, hours after the senseless attack took place.
Screams from a woman pushing a stroller alerted a doorman to the stabbing. The doorman told The Post he just missed seeing the suspect run off.
“She had a little kid. She was hysterical,” the doorman said.
“The construction worker was stabbed 10 feet in front of her. She saw him stabbed twice with a kitchen knife.”
The sinister stabber ran off south down Ninth Avenue, police said.
About two hours passed before the violent menace moved to 500 East 30th Street, near FDR Drive and The Water Club, where came across the 68-year-old man fishing in the East River, Kenny said.
The crazed assailant stabbed the fisherman several times before running off, Kenny said.
The victim was also taken to Bellevue Hospital, where he too succumbed to his injuries, the chief said.
Police could be seen hours later bagging up the hapless angler’s fishing pole as evidence.
The third and final stabbing unfolded in the shadow of the United Nations building at East 42nd Street and First Avenue, Kenny said.
The 36-year-old woman was knifed multiple times in full view of several witnesses, Kenny and sources said.
A pool of blood and a trail of gore remained on the ground after the stabbing.
An ambulance rushed the grievously injured woman to Weill Cornell Medical Center, while several good Samaritans contacted cops, sources said.
A British tourist and Diplomatic Security Service special agents who witnessed the stabbing helped track down the suspect, sources told The Post.
A cab driver who also watched the attack and believed it to be a robbery followed the stabber and alerted Officer Robert Garvey, who caught up to the suspect at 46th Street and First Avenue near the Turkish mission to the UN, Kenny said.
“Once [Officer Garvey] was alerted that this perpetrator was possibly involved in a crime, thinking that maybe it was a robbery, he detained him, and obviously at this point, information is coming over the radio, the detective squad gets involved,” Kenny said. “We start putting the pieces together and realize it’s part of the three attacks that have taken place [this] morning.
“As of right now, these attacks seem to be unprovoked, that he just walked up to them and began to attack them with the knives.”
“If Officer Garvey was not there, these random acts of violence, this person conceivably would have continued those random acts of violence,” Adams added. “So, he saved the lives of fellow New Yorkers.”
The suspect – Rivera, according to sources – had two large kitchen knives covered with blood, Kenny said.
His clothes were also soaked in blood – raising the real possibility that he walked across Manhattan, randomly targeting innocent New Yorkers, the chief said.
“From the video that we see, as of right now, we have video of him with the knives out,” he said.
“But as of this point, our investigation is preliminary. It appears that he was traveling by foot.”
Rivera, a homeless resident of the Bellevue Men’s Shelter, had a long trail of recent arrests and two mental health incidents in which police responded, sources said. He also had an extensive history of arrests from several other states, according to sources.
The run-ins with the NYPD caused Rivera to spend much of this year behind bars – he was only released from Rikers Island a month before the attacks, sources said.
Rivera’s rap sheet includes five burglary arrests going back to December 2023, mostly in Manhattan, sources said.
He also was arrested for assaulting a corrections officer in May inside Bellevue Hospital’s psychiatric center, according to sources.
In October, Rivera was charged with petit larceny after prosecutors said he stole a nearly $1,500 acrylic bowl from a shop in Tribeca, sources said.
Court records show he pleaded not guilty and was released on bail with non-monetary conditions.
He also pleaded guilty to burglary and assault charges from three separate cases in recent months, for which he received jail time, sources said.
Adams said it’s unclear why the suspect was back on the streets, and called it a systemic failure.
“There’s some real questions that we need to look at on why he was on the street, and he has some severe mental health issues that should have been examined, and that’s what we’re looking to spot in the investigation,” Adams said.
Charges against the suspect were pending as of Monday evening.
Additional reporting by Reuven Fenton
