A transit cop is in stable condition after he shot and killed the man who slashed him in the neck with a hunting knife in Brighton Beach on June 18.
Police officer Fillippo Gugliara intervened when a maniac with an 11-inch blade was attacking an elderly woman, according to authorities, and Mayor DeBlasio praised the injured officer during a press conference at Lutheran Medical Center, where the hero is recovering.
“He was brave — he pursued his perp, followed his training, did the right thing,” DeBlasio said. “He went toward the danger.”
Gugliara, a two-year veteran assigned to the force’s transit division, was standing on the platform of the Ocean Parkway Q train station at 1:15 pm when he heard a commotion on the street, police said.
He went down to street level to take a look, and found a 58-year-old man who had just attacked a 78-year-old woman with a knife, officials said.
Gugliara tried to apprehend the man, who slashed him in the neck with the nearly foot-long blade, according to police, and the injured officer squeezed off two shots from his service weapon, striking the assailant in the torso. Emergency responders took the cop to Lutheran Medical Center in stable condition, and pronounced the attacker dead at the scene, police said.
Police have not released the attacker’s name, but chief of detectives Bob Boyce said he had one sealed prior arrest for an aggravated crime.
Police believe the man was involved at an incident in a nearby store and the elderly woman was trying to intervene when the brute attacked her, police Commissioner Bill Bratton said at a press conference that afternoon.
Bratton and Mayor DeBlasio met with Gugliara and his family at the Sunset Park hospital.
The attack and the incident at the store are still under investigation, police said.
