A Midtown NYPD officer was whacked in the head with a butcher knife during a harrowing rush hour scene just steps from Madison Square Garden on Thursday.
The police were called to W. 32nd St. between Seventh Ave. and Broadway just before 5 p.m. when several people saw the suspect running with a butcher’s knife in his hand, according to witnesses and initial reports.
“He was running down the street waving it,” said an MTA worker, who wished not to be named. “The cops were chasing him.”
A phalanx of officers finally surrounded the man near Penn Station and told him to drop the weapon, but he refused.
When one of the cops tried to knock the blade from his hand, he struck the officer with it, leaving him with a deep gash, the New York Daily News reports.
Officers shot the suspect. Both the suspect and the injured officer were rushed to the hospital. Their condition was not known at press time.
