MANHATTAN — A driver said he wanted "to take out a police officer" after he hit a Port Authority squad car with his Audi Wednesday night, officials said.
Matthew Cash, a 24-year-old from Easton, Pa., was driving in the fire lane on Varick Street when he struck two parked cars and finally slammed into the Port Authority police car near Watts Street and the entrance to the Holland Tunnel about 7:50 p.m., a Port Authority police spokesman said.
No officers were in the car and nobody was injured in the crash, the spokesman said.
"I want to take out a police officer," Cash said as the officers arrested him on charges of terroristic threats, attempted aggravated assault and reckless driving, PAPD officials said.
He also claimed that he had smoked phencyclidine, a strong hallucinogen known as PCP, before the crash and officers found synthetic marijuana in his car, the PAPD said.
PCP is highly addictive and mimics schizophrenia by producing delusions, hallucinations, paranoia and disordered thinking, according to the federal National Institute on Drug Abuse.
Cash was treated at an area hospital and was still awaiting arraignment Thursday morning, officials said.
Cash's threats against police came hours after terrorists killed police and journalists in an attack at a Parisian newspaper and followed the assassination of two NYPD officers in Bed-Stuy in December.
Before the NYPD killings, the man responsible posted on Instagram that he wanted to "put wings on pigs."