Police fatally shoot suspect who stabbed 3 people at Grand Central, officials say

A man was fatally shot by police in Grand Central Station after he allegedly stabbed three people on subway platforms on Saturday morning, prompting the closure of some subway stops, according to the NYPD and the Metropolitan Transportation Authority.

The alleged stabber, Anthony Griffin, 44, was pronounced dead at a hospital, NYPD Commissioner Jessica Tisch said.

Two police officers approached Griffin at about 9:40 a.m. on a 4, 5 and 6 train platform, Tisch said. Griffin was "armed with a long knife, described as a machete," she said at a Saturday afternoon news conference at Grand Central.

He was "behaving erratically, repeatedly stating that he was Lucifer," Tisch said. "The individual failed to comply with at least 20 orders to drop the knife."

When Griffin approached the officers with the knife, one of the officers fired his service weapon, striking Griffin twice, Tisch said.

Griffin had three unsealed prior arrests, Tisch said.

He slashed one individual on the 7 train platform, before slashing the other two victims on the 4, 5 and 6 platform.

The injuries to the three victims were not believed to be life-threatening, Tisch said.

One victim, an 84-year-old man, suffered significant lacerations to the head and face. A 65-year-old man "sustained similar injuries," as well as an open-skull fracture, the NYPD said. A 70-year-old woman was also attacked.

"Our officers confronted an armed individual who had already injured multiple people and continued to pose a threat," Tisch said.

"They attempted to de-escalate and when that threat did not stop, they took decisive action to stop and to protect New Yorkers at one of the busiest train platforms in the city."

Beau Lardner, 34, a golf instructor who recently moved from the city to Rockville Centre, was about to swipe into his usual entrance at Grand Central when he heard what he first thought were mechanical noises from the subway.

“It almost doesn’t register that it’s gunshots at the time,” he told Newsday.

Moments later, a wave of subway riders sprinted back up the staircase toward him. The panic “was like being in a zombie movie,” Lardner said. He described people “flying out of the turnstiles” and older riders being knocked over in the rush.

Lardner, who grew up in Garden City, said he alerted officers at another entrance before leaving the station as police and fire trucks flooded the scene. He later learned what happened on X.

Joseph Gulotta, NYPD's chief of transit, said it did not appear that the victims knew each other. They were all transported to a hospital and were in stable condition, the NYPD said.

Trains on the 4 and 6 lines had bypassed Grand Central Station through the early afternoon, but service at the midtown hub was restored on those lines as of Saturday evening, as it was on the 7 line, which had been running on a single track during the investigation, according to the MTA's website.

The 5 train line, though, remained suspended between Grand Central and Bowling Green because of earlier planned track replacement, according to information on the MTA's app.

The two NYPD officers who initially responded to the scene also were transported to the hospital for evaluation, the agency spokesman said.

Newsday's Alek Lewis contributed to this story.