A grisly, broad-daylight fatal stabbing in Manhattan last week has New Yorkers concerned about rising violent crime in New York City.
On Friday, one man fatally stabbed another man after the two started brawling on a busy street in downtown Manhattan.
The fight broke out just after 8am during morning rush hour in the middle of a crosswalk in Manhattan’s Chelsea neighborhood, at West 30th Street and Seventh Avenue.
The men threw punches at each other, and one man swung a knife at the other’s head.
New Yorkers can be seen in video footage of the incident walking by nonchalantly, most not giving the chaos a second look until the fight turned deadly.
One neatly-dressed, gray-haired woman walked through the crosswalk and passed within arm’s length of one of the men. Another woman wearing medical scrubs passed between the two men. A man in an orange sweatshirt watched the fight from the sidewalk.
Eventually, the man with the knife stabbed his opponent, who died at the hospital shortly afterwards.
Police, who were already investigating a separate incident nearby, found a 36-year-old man stabbed in the torso when they arrived on the scene.
Nisean Graves, who is reportedly homeless, was taken into custody on Friday at gunpoint by the NYPD and has been charged with murder for the stabbing.
Graves is a registered sex offender who previously served nine years in prison for attempting to rape a 16-year-old girl.
He was also sentenced to a year in prison in 2021 for doing the same exact thing he did Friday — stabbing a man in both his arms in Manhattan.
The stabbing victim was reportedly a Maryland man who was wanted for questioning in connection with a violent murder.
The shocking incident left a giant blood stain in the middle of the generally safe downtown Manhattan neighborhood, known for its high-end art galleries and celebrity homes.
The murder left some Manhattanites concerned about the brazen nature of the crime.
“New Yorkers witnessed a surreal sight last week, an alien scene that made residents question the city’s future livability,” wrote Nicole Gelinas, a senior fellow at the Manhattan Institute and columnist at the New York Post.
At least two broad daylight murders have already been committed in Manhattan this year.
In February, suspected drug dealers shot and killed a man in Times Square.
Gelinas also wondered whether New York’s progressive approach to criminal justice is coming back to bite the city.
“What about ‘bystander’ de-escalation, so promoted by progressives?” Gelinas asked.
“Democrats created this,” one Twitter user wrote, mentioning the suspect’s prison sentence for the previous stabbing.
Violent crime in New York City is on the rise overall. In total, the city has seen 53,740 violent crimes this year compared with 53,250 crimes by this time last year, according to NYPD data.
Murders, rapes, and robberies are down from this time last year, but felony assault and car thefts are up this year compared to this time in 2022.
Compared to 2021, murders are down, but rapes, robberies, felony assault, burglary, grand larceny, and car thefts are still higher this year.