A person was arrested late Saturday, sources told ABC News.
A person was arrested late Saturday in connection with multiple knife murders that killed two victims on the New York subway system within 24 hours, police sources told ABC News.
Charges against the person are still pending.
The incidents all took place along the A-metro line. At least three of the knives are related, and police are investigating whether the fourth is the case, NYPD commissioner Dermot Shea told a news conference earlier in the day.
The first incident occurred around 11:20 a.m. Friday when a 67-year-old man was stabbed by an unknown man at West 181st Street Station in upper Manhattan, police said. He was treated in a hospital and is recovering well.
Later that day, shortly after 11 p.m., a man was found in the A train at Far Rockaway-Mott Avenue station in Queens with stab wounds to his neck and torso, police said. EMS showed up and pronounced him dead at the scene.
Two hours later, around 1:15 a.m. Saturday, an MTA employee found a 44-year-old woman unconscious in the train at 207th Street Station in Upper Manhattan with multiple stab wounds, police said. She was pronounced dead at a nearby hospital.
The fourth incident occurred at West 181st Street Station in Manhattan, where a 43-year-old man was stabbed shortly before 1:30 a.m. Saturday, police said. He was operated on at a nearby hospital and was in a stable condition.
All the victims appeared to be homeless and the stabbing was unprovoked, police said. The three late-night incidents are believed to be linked, police said.
Detectives stressed that the investigation is preliminary, and that they are definitely trying to determine if all four of the knife pieces were committed by the same person.
In light of the deadly violence, the NYPD will immediately deploy an additional 500 officers throughout the city to patrol the transit system above and below ground, Shea said.
“I know what the train used to look like, and if you look at what the train looks like now and look at how far crime has fallen over the years, but we do not want to take a step back,” Shea said. . “We want to do everything in our power to ensure that it remains the safest system and that people also feel safe.”
The heads of the city’s transit system and transit workers’ union called the attacks’ outrageous and unacceptable ‘.
“Every customer and every one of our brave, heroic transportation workers deserves a safe transportation system,” New York City Transit Interim President Sarah Feinberg and TWU Local 100 President Tony Utano said in a joint statement. ‘We call on the city to add more police to the system, and to do more to assist those in need of mental health. The time for action is now. ‘
ABC News’s Aaron Katersky contributed to this report.