UPPER EAST SIDE — Cops tasered and shot a 22-year-old man and accidentally wounded his mother, whom he was holding at knifepoint, on Monday in an East 65th Street building, police said.
Edgar Soto held a knife to his mother, Flora, at about 2 p.m. in a hallway outside of their sixth-floor apartment at 408 E. 65th St., police and fire officials said.
Cops ordered Soto to stand down and drop the knife, police said. That's when an NYPD sergeant fired a Taser at him.
Unfazed, Soto, still armed with the knife, turned toward the officers. Two of the officers shot him twice in the abdomen and once in the scrotum, police said.
One of the rounds, however, accidentally struck Flora in the buttocks, sources said.
Both Soto and Flora were taken to New York Presbyterian/Weill Cornell Medical Center. They were both in stable condition, police said.
A police officer also suffered a minor injury, and was also taken to the same hospital, an FDNY spokesman said.
Soto was not immediately charged, police said.
Stunned neighbors said Soto kept to himself and at times acted odd.
"He's very quiet, very to himself," said Terri Krsulich, 61, who has lived in the neighborhood for 23 years. "He always seemed a little strange."
But Sharrief Artist, 39, who has lived on the block for the last 10 years, said that Soto's behavior took a turn for the worse in the last few years.
"He wasn't always like this," he said. "In the last three years, he really deteriorated. He went over the top."
"He used to be a polite kid who would talk to you in the street," Artist added. "He never acted out toward anybody. He was a good kid."
