POLICE SEEK MOTIVE AFTER OFFICER STABBED IN THE NECK

NEW YORK» Police were trying Thursday to determine what motivated a stabbing ambush of an officer on an anti-looting patrol in Brooklyn, an attack that spurred a struggle in which the suspect was shot and two other officers had gunshot injuries to their hands.

Officer Yayonfrant Jean Pierre, who was stabbed in the neck, and the other wounded officers, Randy Ramnarine and Dexter Chiu, were expected to recover. The suspect, whose name has not been released, was hospitalized in critical condition after being shot multiple times, Police Commissioner Dermot Shea said.

The bloodshed happened just before midnight Wednesday, in the hours after an 8 p.m. curfew that was intended to quell days of unrest over George Floyd’s death at the hands of a Minneapolis police officer.

Shea said Thursday it is “preliminary to be making statements at this point” about the impetus for the stabbing or any of several other attacks on city police in recent days. Mayor Bill de Blasio said he was “not going to theorize on” motives for such attacks.

“Anyone who attacks a police officer attacks all of us. Period,” the Democratic mayor said at a news conference. “There will be consequences.”

Police union head Patrick Lynch, however, said he saw a connection between Wednesday’s stabbing and the protests over Floyd’s death.

“Did we doubt? Because of the rhetoric we’re hearing, the antipolice rhetoric that’s storming our streets, are we surprised?” the Police Benevolent Association president said earlier Thursday. “I’m not. We said it’s going to happen.”

New York City has been roiled by days of mostly peaceful but sometimes violent protests over Floyd’s death, and by smash-andgrab sprees amid the unrest. Wednesday’s stabbing happened a block from a spot where demonstrators and police engaged days earlier in an hours-long standoff, during which a police car was burned and protesters were beaten with batons.

On Wednesday, Shea said the attacker casually approached two officers stationed in the area to prevent pilfering around 11:45 p.m. and stabbed one — Jean Pierre, according to de Blasio.

Officers a short distance away heard gunshots, rushed to the scene and saw the man with a gun in his hand, believed to have been taken from one of the officers,

Shea said. The responding officers then opened fire. “It appears to be a completely, cowardly, despicable, unprovoked attack,” Shea said. The commissioner said 22 shell casings were recovered.