'Madman On A Rampage' Kills 4, Stabs 2 Officers In Queens: Police

NEW YORK, NY — Four people were killed — including two children — and two police officers were stabbed after a Bronx man attacked his relatives and lit a home on fire early Sunday in Far Rockaway, authorities said. The assailant was killed by police, according to law enforcement.

Officers responded shortly after 5 a.m. to the 400 block of East 22nd Street following a 911 call from a person who said their cousin was killing family members, according to authorities.

When they pulled up to the driveway, they saw a man — later identified as 38-year-old Courtney Gordon — leaving the area with luggage, police said. The officers asked him if he knew what was going on and he nodded, then drew a knife and slashed one officer in the neck and the other in the head, according to police. One of the officers shot Gordon, who was pronounced dead at a hospital, police said.

An 11-year-old girl who died of her injuries was found in front of the home, which police could not enter because the living room was on fire, according to authorities. Once the blaze was extinguished by firefighters, officials discovered a 12-year-old boy, a 44-year-old woman and a man in his 30s all dead with stab wounds in the back bedrooms, police said. A 61-year-old woman was taken to a hospital with multiple stab injuries, according to police.

Gordon, who had one prior arrest for domestic strangulation in the Bronx, is believed to have been visiting family members when he attacked the victims and lit the couch on fire, police said.

“This shows that police officers never know what they’re responding to,” Police Benevolent Association President Patrick Hendry said at a press conference streamed Sunday morning on Facebook. “This scene was chaos, multiple victims, a house on fire and a madman on a rampage, on a mission.”

The officers, 28-year and 16-year veterans, were taken to a hospital but are expected to recover and were released Sunday evening, according to authorities, who said a steak knife used to injure the officers was the only weapon recovered.