Brooklyn Heights

Stabbing, chaos on Montague Street in Brooklyn Heights

Heroic Gowanus man grabs knife from perp

September 22, 2014 By Mary Frost Brooklyn Daily Eagle
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Montague Street in Brooklyn Heights was a scene of chaos Monday afternoon when a man said to be a disgruntled construction worker stabbed his boss and fled towards Court Street, shoving his way through a screaming lunchtime crowd and injuring a bystander who was knocked to the sidewalk.

The stabbing victim, 36, was taken by ambulance to Lutheran Medical Center and is in stable condition, an NYPD spokesperson told the Brooklyn Eagle.

Attacker Andriy Komynar, 20, was apprehended by a heroic Gowanus resident who just happened to be on Montague Street when the melee broke out.

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Witness Avi Navon told the Brooklyn Eagle that he heard the attacker yelling at roughly 1:15 p.m. that he “wasn’t paid for two weeks.” Navon said he believed the man to be a worker at the residential building going up at 172 Montague St.

“He was about 5-foot-10, white, with black hair,” Navon said. “I heard him arguing with the guy in the car. He took a knife, he stabbed him and ran away. I told people to catch him.”

The victim was stabbed while sitting inside his white pickup truck, one witness said. He collapsed onto the street.

Navon and other witnesses said the victim, who lay next to traffic barriers that had been set up around the construction site, had been stabbed in the neck. 

The website Vos Iz Neias reports that the victim is Yakov Hershey Pfieffer, 36, an Orthodox Jewish clergy liaison to the New York Police Department who works as an electrician.

 Heroic Gowanus resident Joseph Washington heard the crowd screaming and jumped into action, subduing the perp and disarming him.

Washington, who was modestly sitting on a tree pit fence afterwards, described his actions for the Brooklyn Eagle.

“I seen him running up the block on Montague Street, and see everybody chasing him,” Washington said. “I grabbed the guy, pulled his hands behind his back and grabbed his knife out of his side pocket. I put him inside the bank for the police officers.”

Washington, who used to play college ball for Stony Brook University on Long Island, added, “I feel good. I feel like I got justice.”

Cops said the man was taken into custody in front of 181 Montague St. Police officers blocked off Montague Street between Clinton and Court streets with crime tape as the unconscious stabbing victim was loaded into an ambulance.

An angry witness told the Eagle, “If Long Island College Hospital was still open they wouldn’t have to take him to some hospital far away. Make sure you put that in the paper.”

The injured bystander, who appeared to be in pain, was placed in a second ambulance. His destination is not yet known.

Update: As of 6:40 p.m. on Monday, police said that the alleged perpetrator had not yet been charged.

 


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