Quantcast

The DNAinfo archives brought to you by WNYC.
Read the press release here.

Police Shoot Man as He Stabs Ex-Girlfriend on LES, Police Say

By  Lisha Arino and Trevor Kapp | January 27, 2015 12:31pm 

 Police say a 37-year-old man stabbed his 40-year-old ex-girlfriend using the knife pictured here.
Police say a 37-year-old man stabbed his 40-year-old ex-girlfriend using the knife pictured here.
View Full Caption
NYPD

LOWER EAST SIDE — Police shot a man five times in the torso after he began to stab his ex-girlfriend in a Vladeck Houses apartment on Monday night, according to the NYPD.

NYPD’s Emergency Service Unit officers opened fire after forcing their way into the public housing apartment and finding Brian Quattocchi, 37, holding a serrated knife to his 40-year-old ex-girlfriend's neck, police said.

Police arrived at the Madison Street home at 11:29 p.m. after the woman reported Quattocchi was violating a restraining order, the NYPD said.

Neighbors said they could her screams from inside the apartment.

The ex-con, who spent 2013 and 2014 in an upstate prison for attempted robbery, barricaded himself inside the woman's apartment as ESU officers tried to talk him out.

 Police responded to the Vladeck Houses, 338 Madison St., at around 11:29 p.m. on Jan. 26, where they found a man holding a serrated knife to his ex-girlfriend's neck, according to the NYPD.
Police responded to the Vladeck Houses, 338 Madison St., at around 11:29 p.m. on Jan. 26, where they found a man holding a serrated knife to his ex-girlfriend's neck, according to the NYPD.
View Full Caption
DNAinfo/Trevor Kapp

Next-door neighbor Lydia Ruiz, 68, said police spoke with the man for about an hour-and-a-half, pleading with him to let the woman out.

“They were saying, 'We just want to talk to you. We don't want to hurt you. We don't want anyone to get hurt,’” she said, describing the police as “soft-spoken.”

But the man told police there was nothing they could do, Ruiz said.

“He said, 'I've been to jail three times, I'm not going a fourth. If you try to come in, I'm gonna stab her,'" she said.

Aside from the year he served in Riverview Correctional Facility on the New York-Ontario border, Quattrocchi had been arrested for marijuana and a domestic violence incident involving the ex-girlfriend, sources said.

Police finally forced their way in after the woman cried for help, according to the NYPD. Police said the man began stabbing his ex after officers entered the apartment.

“An officer yelled, 'He stabbed her in the chest!'" Ruiz recalled. She said police struggled with the man, who was “a big guy.”

Officers used a taser to stop the attack but it had no effect on him, according to the NYPD. An officer then shot the man five times, police said. Ruiz said she did not hear gunshots but did hear someone suggest tasering the suspect.

The woman was taken out of the apartment right away, Ruiz said.

“They ran her out. They covered her up. She had on a black sweatshirt. Her eyes were open,” she said. The man came out 15 minutes later, she added.

“He was on stretcher and wasn't covered up. His chest was out and he was bleeding from the left shoulder and the ribs. He was strapped from neck to toe like a mental patient."

The man and woman were taken to Bellevue Hospital, where he was in critical but stable condition and she was in stable condition, police said. Quattocchi was charged with attempted murder and criminal possession of a weapon, police siad.

An officer was also taken to Bellevue to be treated for tinnitus and was released, according to the NYPD.

Additional reporting by Murray Weiss.