(New York) Four members of the same family were stabbed to death on the night of Saturday to Sunday in New York by a relative, who then injured two police officers on the spot before being shot dead, authorities announced on Sunday.
None of the suspect’s motivations have yet been established by investigators, who seem to favor a family affair at this stage.
The tragedy took place in a neighborhood far from the center of the megacity, Far Rockaway, where the police were called at dawn on Sunday by one of the victims, “a young woman saying that a cousin was to kill members of his family,” described a police official, Chief Jeffrey Maddrey.
Arriving near the residence, two police officers encountered a man and questioned him. The 38-year-old then attacked them and injured them with a knife, before one of the police officers shot him and fatally injured him.
On site, when a fire broke out in the residence, the police first discovered an 11-year-old child seriously injured in front of the house, who then died in hospital. Inside, in two rooms, three other lifeless people were found, “a 12-year-old child, a 44-year-old woman and a man in his thirties,” said the head of the inspectors of the New York Police Department, Joseph Kenny.
Another victim aged 61, seriously injured, was hospitalized.
The injured officers were also hospitalized, but their lives are not in danger, according to police.
The suspect, a resident of the Bronx borough, was known to the police for a previous case of domestic violence.