FIVE stabbed in machete attack at Rabbi’s home in Monsey, New York; Suspect CAPTURED

by SooperMexican

A knife machete attack in Monsey appears to be just the latest in a wave of anti-Semitic incidents in New York. Watch below:

From NBC in New York: 

Ramapo Police Chief Brad Weidel said the suspected attacker entered the residence around 10 p.m. armed with a knife. Saturday was the seventh night of Hanukkah and was being widely observed in Monsey, a hamlet that is home to thousands of Orthodox Jews. There were as many as 70 people in the rabbi’s home at the time of the attack.

The Hasidic organization Chabad, citing sources in the community and witnesses at the scene, said someone in the home threw a table at the attacker, chasing him off. He then allegedly tried to gain access to the synagogue next door, but the occupants barricaded themselves inside. The assailant then fled the scene in a silver sedan, according to witnesses.

Luckily a suspect has been apprehended:

By midnight, the suspect was located in Harlem and taken into custody by the NYPD.

UPDATE:

“The suspect in Saturday’s Hannukah attack in Monsey, New York has been charged with five counts of attempted murder and one count of burglary. Monsey Police identified the suspect as Grafton E. Thomas of Greenwood Lake, New York.”

And…

“NYPD quickly picked up a suspect, identified him as Grafton Thomas, 37, who has several previous arrests on his record, including one for punching a police horse. He was turned over to the state police, and will face five counts of attempted murder”

More about how he was apprehended from CNN:

The suspect in a string of stabbings during a Hanukkah celebration at a rabbi’s Monsey, New York, home was found with “blood all over him,” a law enforcement source with direct knowledge of the case told CNN on Sunday.

Thomas Grafton was driving a Nissan Sentra across the George Washington Bridge into New York City when police identified his license plate about 11:45 p.m. Saturday, the source said without elaborating.

Police apprehended Grafton without incident after midnight, a New York Police Department spokeswoman told CNN earlier Sunday.

Ramapo officers picked him up and transported him upstate, the spokeswoman said. Monsey is a hamlet within Ramapo.

Here are the injuries:

The Orthodox Jewish Public Affairs Council said the five victims, all Hasidic, were transported to local hospitals with stab wounds. As of Sunday morning, at least two were believed to have been critically injured.

Just horrible.

UPDATE ON THE SUSPECT:

Here’s his mugshot:

Video of his arrest:

And according to people who know him, he’s mentally ill, not a terrorist:

The man accused of going on a stabbing rampage at a Hanukkah celebration in upstate Monsey is “not a terrorist” — he’s just mentally ill — family friends claimed Sunday in an apparent response to Gov. Andrew Cuomo’s statements earlier in the day that the attack was an “act of domestic terrorism.”

Grafton Thomas — who is accused of storming into a rabbi’s house in Monsey Saturday night and wounding five people with a machete — is “not a violent person,” according to his pastor of 10 years, Reverend Wendy Paige of the Hudson Highlands Cooperative Parish.

“Grafton is not a terrorist, he is a man who has mental illness in America and the systems that be have not served him well,” Paige said.

We’ll see what else comes out in the investigation.

We’ll update as necessary.


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