Hospital worker charged with attempted murder in random Queens knife attacks

A hospital worker apprehended late Wednesday in connection with a string of unprovoked stabbings in Queens has been charged with multiple counts of attempted murder, a senior police official confirmed Thursday.

Jermain Rigueur also faces assault, attempted assault and criminal possession of a weapon charges in the spree that left at least five people stabbed within nine days, mainly in the Jamaica area of the borough. He is expected to be arraigned later Thursday.

Word of the Woodhull Hospital employee’s arrest came hours after cops released surveillance video and images of the suspect and pleaded for help getting him off the streets.

The NYPD made that public plea after three stabbing incidents in about 30 minutes Wednesday morning. First, a 74-year-old was stabbed in the back on 134th Avenue. Six minutes later, police responded to a 911 call of a 41-year-old man stabbed in the same precinct, this time on 161st Street.

Another incident was reported at Parsons Boulevard and Archer Avenue about a half-hour after that. All Wednesday’s victims are expected to be OK, as are those involved in the earlier attacks on Jan. 8 and Jan. 16.

The NYPD is asking for help finding a man they believe to be behind multiple stabbings in Queens. NBC New York’s Pei-Sze Cheng and Myles Miller report.

The first case in the pattern involved a 61-year-old man stabbed in the back as he walked alone on 137th Avenue, approaching 157th Street. Eight days elapsed between that and the next attack linked to the pattern.

That came Tuesday, when Rigueur allegedly attacked a woman was returning home from work on Guy Brewer Boulevard. The victim told News 4 she had just gotten off a Q111 bus and was just steps from home when she noticed a man cross the street and start walking behind her. Suddenly, he was directly behind her.

She felt a sharp puncture on the right side of her back. The man mumbled something but she was wearing AirPods and couldn’t hear him, she said. The next thing she knew, she was on the ground and he ran off, slipping on the snow and ice. She heard helicopters searching for him later.

The 41-year-old woman says she managed to walk the last bit of the way toward her house, where her husband called an ambulance. She had emergency surgery to ensure no organs were punctured in the attack. They weren’t, she says, so she got some stitches and was able to return home.

Authorities have not speculated on a possible motive for the attacks. Police said Rigueur “appeared to be talking to himself…speaking gibberish” leading up to and during the attack on the woman. Minutes later, he was seen on surveillance video stabbing the front window of a nearby bodega with a hunting knife.

Investigators are also looking into whether Rigueur may be connected to a stabbing in transit in Brooklyn Wednesday.

Information on a possible attorney for him wasn’t immediately available.