Ray Kelly speaks about the stabbing of Officer Loor, displaying the 3 1/2 inch knife used by assailant Terrence Hale on the injured officer in Manhattan. (April 17, 2012)” class=”wp-image-13667107″/>A police officer was fighting for his life after an East Harlem man described as mentally ill stabbed him in the head with a 3-1/2-inch blade, officials said.
Officer Eder Loor, 28, was in critical condition Tuesday afternoon at Mount Sinai Hospital, where doctors were “cautiously optimistic” pending the outcome of the surgery, Police Commissioner Ray Kelly told reporters. According to published reports, Loor was out of surgery at 4:30pm.
“The blade punctured his brain,” Kelly said.
Loor and his partner, Officer Lukson Merisme, were responding to a call at 10:30 a.m. from a woman who said her emotionally disturbed son needed to be hospitalized. The officers met the woman, Vearry Hale, outside of her Third Avenue apartment building and found her son, Terrance Hale, 26, in the lobby, police said.
The officers offered to escort Hale to the hospital, but he refused, according to authorities. Without warning, he allegedly stabbed Loor in the left temple and then ran north on Third Avenue, police said.
“Merisme thought Loor was punched. He didn¹t see a knife, but a knife was produced at the scene,” Kelly said.
Merisme, along with other officers who responded to the bloody scene, nabbed Hale at the corner of East 109th Street. He was arrested with assault charges pending, Kelly said. Hale¹s rap sheet includes busts for robbery and assault.
