NEW YORK — A man who this week attacked four people with a hammer was shot and wounded by police Wednesday after he pulled the weapon from a bag and struck an officer at least three times on a crowded street near Penn Station, police said.
David Baril, 30, was hospitalized in critical but stable condition with at least two gunshot wounds, said Manhattan Chief of Detectives William Aubry. The two officers were responding to an unrelated assault about 10 a.m. in midtown Manhattan when they noticed Baril on the street, wearing a hood and a mask, he said.
“When he turned around, he violently started swinging,” Aubry said.
Surveillance video captures the man striking Officer Lauren O’Rourke about three times before her partner, Geraldo Casaigne, fires four shots. Both O’Rourke and Baril fall to the ground.
O’Rourke was said to be undergoing medical testing.
The hammer was, for a time, lying in the intersection at 37th Street and Eighth Avenue. Authorities think it’s the same weapon used in four attacks this week.
