The man accused of stabbing two people on Manhattan's Upper West Side has been identified and charged, and police are now examining the attacks as a possible hate crime. What had first appeared to be a pair of random, unprovoked assaults has taken on a new dimension after investigators learned what the suspect was allegedly shouting as he struck.
Police Commissioner Jessica Tisch put out a statement identifying the suspect as 51-year-old Raul Morales. According to the commissioner, Morales has been charged in connection with both attacks, moving the case from a frantic afternoon search for a knife-wielding man to the formal prosecution of a named suspect now in custody.
The detail that reframed the investigation came from the commissioner's account of the attacks themselves. Tisch said that during each of the two assaults, Morales yelled Allahu Akbar. That claim has prompted the NYPD to look into the stabbings as a potential hate crime, though authorities stressed the attacks remain under active investigation.
The violence unfolded on Thursday afternoon, at around 1:30, along a stretch of the Upper West Side. Police said one victim, a 57-year-old man, was stabbed in the chest, while a second victim, a 50-year-old man, was approached from behind and stabbed as he stood on the sidewalk near West 86th Street and Amsterdam Avenue.
Officers had followed the trail to a building on Amsterdam Avenue between 88th and 89th Streets, where a man was taken into custody a short time after the stabbings. Investigators said they were examining a screwdriver and a blade as the possible weapons used in the two attacks on the men.
Both of the wounded men were taken to the hospital, and while one was initially listed in critical condition, authorities said both are expected to survive. As the NYPD weighs whether the attacks were driven by bias, the investigation continues into exactly what led Morales to allegedly target two strangers in broad daylight.