Yer typical evening in NY

[Sir Tokyo Sexwale]

kinell

 

 

A graffiti artist armed with five knives was arrested in New York after a bloody 28-hour rampage in which he fatally stabbed his stepfather, ex-girlfriend and her mother, hit a pedestrian with a stolen car and stabbed a subway passenger, police said.

 

Maksim Gelman, 23, was still carrying a bloodied kitchen knife when he was taken into police custody at about 9am local time on Saturday after a nightlong manhunt from Brooklyn into Manhattan, according to officials.

 

"It's so horrendous and bizarre. We have no reason to know why he did this," said police commissioner Raymond Kelly, who held up a photo of the knife that he said Gelman had used to slash the subway rider on the head and neck. The man survived.

 

"I don't recall seeing anything like this," said Kelly, who has spent decades working for the New York police department. He said charges were pending against Gelman.

 

The stabbing spree started just after 5am on Friday when, police say, Gelman fatally stabbed his stepfather, Aleksandr Kuznetsov, at their apartment in Brooklyn's Sheepshead Bay neighbourhood. Gelman was fighting with his mother after she refused to let him use her Lexus, and Kuznetsov intervened and was attacked, Kelly said.

 

Police found the 54-year-old man's body at his home in the predominantly eastern European immigrant neighbourhood. The Ukrainian-born Gelman and his mother became naturalised US citizens in 2004 or 2005, Kelly said.

 

At about 10.30am, several blocks away, Gelman entered the home of his ex-girlfriend and used a kitchen knife to fatally stab her mother, 56-year-old Anna Bulchenko, Kelly said. When 20-year-old Yelena Bulchenko arrived home at about 4pm, she found her mother dead in a pool of blood and called the emergency services.

 

Gelman, who was apparently still in the house, then chased Bulchenko as she fled outside and stabbed her 11 times until she died, Kelly said. He then sped away in the Lexus to Brooklyn's Midwood neighbourhood and hit a Pontiac. The driver confronted Gelman and was stabbed three times in the chest but survived and was in stable condition, Kelly said.

 

Gelman drove off in the Pontiac, hitting 62-year-old pedestrian Stephen Tanenbaum, who died of his injuries, police said. Gelman later abandoned the car, engine running, in the driveway of a private house in Midwood, not far from a freight railway line which police said Gelman frequented as a graffiti artist.

 

Gelman was not seen again until just before 1am on Saturday, when he confronted a livery cab driver in the Crown Heights area and stabbed him, Kelly said. Shortly after, he approached a couple in a Nissan, stabbing the man multiple times in the hand before hijacking the car, police said. Both men survived.

 

Just after 8am on Saturday, passengers on a southbound subway train in upper Manhattan noticed that a man on the train matched photos of Gelman they had seen in newspapers.

 

One passenger on the train got off at West 96th Street, approached officers on the platform and told them that a man fitting Gelman's description knocked a newspaper out of her hand, saying: "Do you believe what they're writing about me?"

 

Gelman changed trains at West 34th Street station and stabbed a passenger, Kelly said. Officers were in the driver's compartment of the train after hearing reports that Gelman might be on board. Gelman made his way up to the driver's door and pounded on it, "claiming that he was the police," Kelly said.

 

One of the officers opened the door and wrestled Gelman to the ground, knocking the knife from his hand, Kelly said. He was taken into custody from the train at Times Square.

 

"I saw a stream of people coming from the front of the train. They looked upset. They had white faces," Hyun Jo, of East Orange, told the New York Post. "The conductor announced they found the guy who killed four people yesterday. I saw the blood in the other car when they let us off. It was crazy."

 

Kelly described Gelman as an unemployed drug user with 10 previous arrests – mostly linked to graffiti and drugs.

 

The commissioner said the suspect's statements to police were "pretty incoherent" – including one in which he stated that "she had to die". Kelly said he wasn't sure if that was a reference to the ex-girlfriend or someone else.