The Associated Press
NEW YORK — An emotionally disturbed man driving his car on a sidewalk nearly ran over a nun on Thursday before trying to stab a rookie policeman in the chest and breaking his knife on the officer’s shield, authorities said.
The unusual string of events started in Queens about 5 p.m., when the man left the scene of an accident and started barreling down a sidewalk where the nun was walking, police said.
Another man pushed the nun out of the way of the oncoming car, which struck a tree and a wall before coming to a stop, the New York Police Department said. When the driver tried to run away, two people tried to stop him, but they backed off when he threatened them with a kitchen knife, police said.
Two responding officers confronted the driver, who then tried to stab one of them, Stuart Ingram, in the chest, police said.
Ingram said later he told the man repeatedly to drop the knife but the man lunged at him with it. He said the knife hit his badge and shattered.
Ingram said he struck the man with an expandable baton and, with the help of a civilian, subdued him.
“That’s when we apprehended him,” Ingram said coolly at a news conference.
The 50-year-old man was in custody Thursday night, and charges against him were pending, police said.