51-year-old man is charged with murder after 3 are stabbed in New York City rampage

NEW YORK (AP) — A man has been charged with three counts of first-degree murder in the fatal stabbings of three people in random attacks across Manhattan, police said Tuesday.

Ramon Rivera, 51, was taken into custody after he was found with blood on his clothes and the two kitchen knives, authorities said. He awaited arraignment Tuesday. A message seeking comment was left with an attorney who represented him in a prior case.

“Three New Yorkers. Unprovoked attacks that left us searching for answers on how something like this could happen,” Mayor Eric Adams said at a news conference Monday afternoon.

Investigators were working to understand what propelled the rampage, which happened within 2 1/2 hours Monday.

“No words exchanged. No property taken. Just attacked, viciously,” said Joseph Kenny, the New York Police Department’s chief of detectives. “He just walked up to them and began to attack them with the knives.”

The first stabbing, on West 19th Street, killed a 36-year-old construction worker, Angel Lata Landi, who was standing by his work site near the Hudson River a little before 8:30 a.m., police said. About two hours later and across the island of Manhattan, a 68-year-old man was attacked while fishing in the East River near East 30th Street.

Both men died shortly after the stabbings, Kenny said. The fisherman's name was not immediately released.

The suspect then apparently traveled north near the riverfront. Around 10:55 a.m., a 36-year-old woman identified as Wilma Augustin was stabbed multiple times near the United Nations headquarters on East 42nd Street, Kenny said. She died later Monday at a hospital, police said.

A passing cabdriver saw the third attack and alerted police on nearby First Avenue and East 46th Street, officials said. An officer soon apprehended the suspect.

The bloodshed happened in a major city where, like in others, crime has taken a prominent place in political discourse and everyday concerns in the years since pandemic lockdowns emptied streets and spurred disorder. Killings in New York City so far in 2024 have declined 14% in two years, but serious assaults are up about 12%, according to police statistics.

Some recent stabbings in public places have drawn attention, including a fatal attack at the Coney Island subway station just weeks ago.

Adams, a Democrat, called Monday’s violence “a clear, clear example” of failures in the criminal justice system and elsewhere.

The suspect in Monday's rampage, who apparently is homeless, had been sentenced in a criminal case a few months ago and was arrested in a grand larceny case last month, officials said.

The rampage came three years after a string of stabbings at various points along a subway line killed two people and wounded two others within a few hours.

In 2019, four people who were sleeping in doorways and sidewalks in Chinatown were beaten to death, and a fifth was seriously injured, early one Saturday morning.

Associated Press writers Karen Matthews in New York and Anthony Izaguirre in Albany, New York, contributed to this report.

An NYPD officer works at the scene of a stabbing in New York, Monday, Nov. 18, 2024. (AP Photo/David R. Martin)

This image released by the New York City Police Department shows a knife that was recovered at a stabbing in New York, Monday Nov. 18, 2024. (New York City Police Department via AP)

Ramon Rivera, a suspect arrested after multiple people were stabbed early Monday, is escorted out by NYPD officers at the NYPD 10th Precinct in New York, Monday, Nov. 18, 2024. (AP Photo/Yuki Iwamura)

Ramon Rivera, a suspect arrested after multiple people were stabbed early Monday, is escorted out by NYPD officers at the NYPD 10th Precinct in New York, Monday, Nov. 18, 2024. (AP Photo/Yuki Iwamura)

Ramon Rivera, a suspect arrested after multiple people were stabbed early Monday, is escorted out by NYPD officers at the NYPD 10th Precinct in New York, Monday, Nov. 18, 2024. (AP Photo/Yuki Iwamura)

Ramon Rivera, a suspect arrested after multiple people were stabbed early Monday, is escorted out by NYPD officers at the NYPD 10th Precinct in New York, Monday, Nov. 18, 2024. (AP Photo/Yuki Iwamura)

Ramon Rivera, a suspect arrested after multiple people were stabbed early Monday, is escorted out by NYPD officers at the NYPD 10th Precinct in New York, Monday, Nov. 18, 2024. (AP Photo/Yuki Iwamura)

Ramon Rivera, a suspect arrested after multiple people were stabbed early Monday, is escorted out by NYPD officers at the NYPD 10th Precinct in New York, Monday, Nov. 18, 2024. (AP Photo/Yuki Iwamura)

NEW YORK (AP) — U.S. stocks are slipping Tuesday following escalations in the Russia-Ukraine war, as investors herd into gold, Treasury bonds and other investments traditionally seen as safer during times of trouble.

The S&P 500 was 0.5% lower in early trading. The Dow Jones Industrial Average was down 319 points, or 0.7%, as of 9:35 a.m. Eastern time, and the Nasdaq composite was 0.5% lower.

The losses were more severe in European stock markets, where France’s CAC 40 index fell 1.8% and Germany’s DAX lost 1.7%. They sank after Russia said Ukraine fired six U.S.-made ATACMS missiles at it. Earlier in the day, Russian President Vladimir Putinformally lowered the threshold for Russia’s use of its nuclear weapons.

Gold rose 0.5% and recovered some of the losses it sustained following Donald Trump’s victory in the U.S. presidential election. Prices also rose for U.S. Treasury bonds, which are seen as some of the world’s safest investments. That in turn lowered their yields, and the 10-year Treasury yield fell to 4.37% from 4.41% late Monday.

Such cautiousness overshadowed optimism coming from several reports by big U.S. retailers showing bigger profits for the summer than expected.

Walmart climbed 3.4% after topping forecasts for both profit and revenue. The nation’s biggest retailer said it saw broad-based strength across its categories, including sales both online and in stores. It also said it served more upper-income households, while raising its forecasts for sales and profit for the full year.

Lowe’s likewise delivered bigger profit and revenue for the latest quarter than analysts expected, but its stock nevertheless slipped 3.5%.

A report in the morning said construction crews broke ground on fewer new homes last month than economists expected.

Other big companies set to report this week include chipmaker Nvidia and Target on Wednesday and Deere on Thursday.

Nvidia, with a total market value of nearly $3.5 trillion, will need to hit analysts’ high expectations for growth during the latest quarter to justify its big stock price, which has surged more than 185% this year amid Wall Street’s frenzy around artificial-intelligence technology.

Elsewhere on Wall Street, Super Micro Computer soared 22% after it said it filed a plan with Nasdaq to keep its stock listed on the exchange. It also said it hired an independent auditor, which can help it file financial statements that it needs to in order to comply with Nasdaq’s listing requirements.

The company’s stock has been on a wild ride. It more than quadrupled in the first two and a half months of this year because the company makes servers used in AI. But it gave up all that and more, with losses accelerating after Ernst & Young resigned as its public accounting firm. A special committee of the company’s board later said that a three-month investigation found “no evidence of fraud or misconduct on the part of management or the Board of Directors.”

In stock markets abroad, indexes in Asia were more stable than in Europe. They rose 0.7% in Shanghai and 0.4% in Hong Kong, rebounding from early losses.

AP Business Writers Matt Ott and Elaine Kurtenbach contributed.

FILE - The morning sun shines on Wall Street in New York's Financial District on Tuesday, Nov. 19, 2024. (AP Photo/Peter Morgan)

FILE - People pass the New York Stock Exchange on Nov. 5, 2024, in New York. (AP Photo/Peter Morgan, File)

Currency traders pass by a screen showing the Korea Composite Stock Price Index (KOSPI), left, and the foreign exchange rate between U.S. dollar and South Korean won, center, at the foreign exchange dealing room of the KEB Hana Bank headquarters in Seoul, South Korea, Tuesday, Nov. 19, 2024. (AP Photo/Ahn Young-joon)

Currency traders work near a screen showing the Korea Composite Stock Price Index (KOSPI), left, and the foreign exchange rate between U.S. dollar and South Korean won, center, at the foreign exchange dealing room of the KEB Hana Bank headquarters in Seoul, South Korea, Tuesday, Nov. 19, 2024. (AP Photo/Ahn Young-joon)

A currency trader reacts near a screen showing the Korea Composite Stock Price Index (KOSPI), left, and the foreign exchange rate between U.S. dollar and South Korean won at the foreign exchange dealing room of the KEB Hana Bank headquarters in Seoul, South Korea, Tuesday, Nov. 19, 2024. (AP Photo/Ahn Young-joon)