Patients with guns
Dozens of weapons seized at city hosps in past year
City hospitals have a sick problem on their hands: armed patients and visitors.
Dozens of weapons have been recovered by those seeking care at hospitals run by the city over the past year — leaving hospital staffers on edge.
A small arsenal of handguns, stun guns, scissors, razors, kitchen knives, brass knuckles, box cutters and billy clubs have been seized at city medical centers, photos and internal documents shared with the Daily News show.
On Feb. 2, a foot-long survival knife like the one seen in the “Rambo” movies was recovered from Bellevue. At Harlem Hospital, eight knives and two stun guns were found over the past year. In addition, more than 30 bladed weapons were taken off patients and visitors at Brooklyn’s Kings County Hospital, hospital police said.
The problem came into clear focus after a shooting at Jabobi Medical Center in the Bronx, where a man opened fire in the emergency room in January. Three firearms were taken off patients and visitors since August 2020 — including one pistol found on a man undergoing an X-ray, hospital police union officials said.
The influx of weapons is particularly disturbing for hospital police, who do not carry sidearms, but only collapsible batons.
“An alarming number of weapons have been recovered,” Teamsters Local 237 President Gregory Floyd, who represents hospital police officers, said, adding that not all city hospitals have given their seizure tallies to the union. “We’re doing their best every day to stop the increasing flow of deadly weapons. But guns, knives, even bayonets have been seized.
“Everybody thinks that city hospitals are safe, but they, especially the emergency rooms, can be pretty violent,” he explained.
The city did not immediately disclose how many weapons have been found, and it was not immediately clear if the numbers seen over the past year are an increase over prior years.
NYC Health + Hospitals is in the process of installing metal detectors at Jacobi’s emergency room and has increased patrols around hospital grounds.
The metal detectors will “screen for unlawful weapons to increase the safety of our patients and employees,” a Health + Hospitals spokesman said, adding that hospital police are being trained to use the screening equipment.
“Public safety at our Health + Hospitals facilities is paramount. Our goal is to continue to have a welcoming and secure environment for our patients and staff,” the spokesman said.
On Jan. 25, a staredown between visitors in Jacobi’s emergency room ended with 35-yearold Ruben Perez shot in the left forearm.
The accused gunman, Keber Martinez, 25, fired at Perez after the victim shot him a nasty glare and ran his mouth, cops said. Bullets flew past panicked bystanders — including a woman carrying a child — during the 12:30 p.m. shooting, cops said.
Martinez was arrested later that day and charged with attempted murder, reckless endangerment and weapons possession.
Thirteen days before the emergency room shooting, Dontae Spencer, 23, was in the hospital’s radiology department when a routine X-ray scan revealed he had a handgun in his coat pocket, documents shared with The News show.
The quick-thinking radiologist asked Spencer to disrobe and put his clothes in a property bag so he could do more scans and called hospital police, who took the disarmed suspect into custody. Spencer was charged with weapons possession.
On July 17, 2021, a handgun and a knife were taken off of 30-year-old Pedro Namis-Gonzalez after he wigged out in the Morris Park hospital’s psychiatric ER triage room, records show. The man allegedly pulled both the gun and a knife on a hospital employee before he was subdued.
Eleven months earlier, on Aug. 27, 2020, police at Jacobi stopped Brandon Rivera, 31, from smoking marijuana as he visited his friend in the hospital. When they questioned him, cops found a defaced handgun and a small kitchen knife in his pockets, reports show.
Both Rivera and Namis-Gonzalez were charged with weapons possession, police said. All three cases were pending in Bronx Criminal Court.