Machete attacker injures three at Grand Central before police shoot him dead

A man armed with a machete cut through one of New York’s busiest transit hubs Saturday morning, injuring three people on the 4, 5 and 6 platform at Grand Central-42nd Street before police shot him dead after he refused repeated orders to drop the weapon.

Police said officers responded around 9:40 a.m. after a civilian flagged them down at the station. The suspect, identified as 44-year-old Anthony Griffin, repeatedly claimed he was “Lucifer” and ignored at least 20 commands to disarm. When Griffin advanced toward officers with the knife extended, one officer fired twice. The confrontation, along with the earlier attack and the police response, was captured on body-worn camera.

The three victims were an 84-year-old man, a 65-year-old man and a 70-year-old woman. Police said their injuries were not believed to be life-threatening and that they were all in stable condition, but one suffered severe lacerations to the head and face and another had an open skull fracture. Transit Chief Joseph Gulotta said the attacks appeared to be random, deepening concern that anyone passing through the station could have been caught in the violence.

Surveillance video reportedly showed Griffin boarding a No. 7 train at the Vernon Boulevard station in Queens about 9:30 a.m., roughly 10 minutes before the assault in Midtown Manhattan. Police also said Griffin had three unsealed prior arrests. After the shooting, he was taken to Bellevue Hospital, where he was pronounced dead.

The disruption spread quickly through Grand Central, a station complex that serves about 400,000 daily riders and ranks as the second-busiest in the New York City subway system. The Metropolitan Transportation Authority said 4, 5, 6 and 7 trains were bypassing Grand Central during the investigation, turning a morning commute into a prolonged service disruption at a major connector between subway, rail and street-level traffic.

The episode revived a familiar anxiety for New Yorkers who rely on the system’s biggest hubs: when a weapon appears on a crowded platform, the line between daily commuting and a fast-moving police operation can vanish in seconds. Mayor Zohran Mamdani said the New York City Police Department would conduct an internal investigation and release the body-camera footage. Gov. Kathy Hochul said she had been briefed and was grateful to the officers who responded quickly.