ONE POLICE PLAZA — The 22-year-old mentally unstable man who held his mother at knife point thanked cops for shooting him — and warned that he might have killed a relative if police had not taken him down, Police Commissioner Ray Kelly said Tuesday.
"Good thing you got me," Edgar Soto told police after being taken into custody Monday after threatening to kill his family, according to Kelly. "Somebody was going to get killed today."
Edgar Soto, whom cops tried to apprehend with a Taser, was shot three times in the torso in the hallway at 408 E. 65th St., capping a dramatic standoff in which cops accidentally wounded his mother, Flora Soto, too.
Flora Soto, 49, and Edgar Soto were both in stable condition and recovering at New York-Presbyterian Hospital, police said.
The Soto family has a long of history of domestic violence, with seven separate incidents recorded at the Upper East Side address. A high-ranking police source said Edgar Soto, according to his mother, suffers from depression.
Edgar Soto, in fact, stabbed his sister — who called 911 in Monday's incident — twice before, said NYPD's chief spokesman, Paul Browne. But when the sister went to the hospital, she lied to officials both times about how she was injured.
"She said she was trying to remove an ingrown hair … and stabbed herself," Browne said. "They didn't particularly believe that.
"So we never learned about those as crimes," he added. "And it sort of escalated."
Edgar Soto lost control again Monday afternoon, when, armed with a knife, he threatened to kill his mother and sister, police said.
By the time cops respond, Soto was pacing back and forth, threatening to stab his mother in the eye. He held the knife to her neck, Kelly said.
Cops, including a sergeant, tried to disarm Soto.
"He tells the individual to drop the knife, drop the knife," Kelly said, referring to the sergeant. "He shoots at him with the Taser."
But the Taser didn't strike him, Kelly added, and Soto makes a move toward the sergeant and his mother.
"When the officers see that," Kelly said, "they fire, shoot their weapons."
He had not been charged as of Tuesday afternoon.
