New York Metropolis Mayor Eric Adams pleaded with state leaders in Albany for assist involuntarily relocating the mentally ailing homeless from the town’s streets and into care, characterizing a Monday stabbing spree as the newest casualty of New York’s inaction.
“Everybody said I was inhumane, that we just want to institutionalize people,” Adams mentioned throughout a press briefing Tuesday. “Well, this is the result. This is the result of not taking actions and ignoring people who need help.”
Adams mentioned metropolis officers will analyze how shortcomings within the prison justice and psychological well being techniques failed accused killer Ramon Rivera, who had been arrested eight occasions beforehand earlier than allegedly killing three folks on Monday.
“We have now three New Yorkers who had been murdered in our metropolis by an individual who was betrayed by the well being care system,” he mentioned.
SUSPECT IN CUSTODY AFTER ‘UNPROVOKED’ NEW YORK CITY STABBING SPREE LEAVES 3 PEOPLE DEAD: POLICE
Ramon Rivera, 51, having been charged with three stabbing murders, is pictured in police custody leaving the NYPD’s tenth Precinct stationhouse on Monday, Nov. 18, 2024. (Sam Costanza for the New York Each day Information/Tribune Information Service by way of Getty Pictures)
Rivera, 51, was caught when an excellent Samaritan cab driver alerted authorities, NYPD Chief of Detectives Joe Kenny mentioned.
He fatally stabbed a 36-year-old man standing outdoors a development website on the town’s West Facet, then killed a second man who was fishing by stabbing him a number of occasions by way of his physique, police mentioned. Rivera allegedly attacked a girl a block away from the United Nations earlier than he was taken into custody. That girl later died.
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Ramon Rivera, 51, is accused of killing three folks throughout a Manhattan stabbing spree on Monday. (Fox Information Digital)
Surveillance footage captured by a enterprise on West nineteenth Avenue and obtained by the New York Publish allegedly reveals Rivera placing on gloves and making ready a knife earlier than the string of assaults. Regulation enforcement sources instructed the New York Publish that Rivera selected his victims as a result of they had been “alone” and “distracted.”
Rivera spent most of this yr behind bars and completed his most up-to-date jail sentence for a spate of housebreaking and assault convictions on Oct. 17, the New York Publish reported.
Rivera has a documented historical past of psychological well being issues, and public information point out he has had arrests or has been recognized to legislation enforcement in three different states, NBC Information reported.
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Two kitchen knives, one bloody, had been utilized by a homeless man to kill three folks in New York Metropolis on Monday in a sequence of random, unprovoked assaults, police mentioned. (NYPD)
Adams outlined steps the town has taken to take the mentally ailing off the streets and subway techniques, together with efforts to shift towards small psychological well being “clubhouses” – day facilities that join them with neighborhood, artwork remedy and generally jobs.
Nonetheless, Adams mentioned that he wants assist from the state’s capitol. The Supportive Interventions Act, his invoice to develop the town’s authority to drive the unwell off the streets and into psychiatric care, has not made it into legislation.
Regulation enforcement officers work on the website of a stabbing spree close to the United Nations Headquarters in New York Metropolis, on Monday, Nov. 18, 2024. (AP Picture/Yuki Iwamura)
“We’ve been back and forth to Albany to say let’s codify in law and give real clarity around the authority we have of dealing with people with severe mental health illness,” he mentioned in his Tuesday briefing.
Rivera was arraigned on three counts of first-degree serial homicide in a Manhattan courtroom hours after Adams’ briefing.
