NY Post
May 16, 2015
A terrifying spree of hammer attacks came to a bloody end on Wednesday when a lunatic turned his tool on an NYPD cop in Midtown — and her partner shot him on a crowded street.
Dramatic video released by the department shows career criminal David Baril, 30, strike Police Officer Lauren O’Rourke three times with the weapon before her partner opened fire around 10 a.m. on Eighth Avenue and West 37th Street.
Officer Geraldo Casaigne saved his partner’s life, Police Commissioner Bill Bratton said.
“These officers had no chance to call for assistance — they acted quickly and instinctively,” Bratton said.
The two Midtown South cops had just left the scene of an unrelated assault at 38th Street and Eighth Avenue when they spotted a hooded man with a camouflage-colored mask covering his face.
Believing he could be the madman behind four Monday attacks on random Manhattan victims, they began to follow him.
At the southeast corner of 37th and Eighth, Baril turned around briefly, then crossed the street, sources said.
The surveillance video shows O’Rourke and Casaigne approach him at a street corner, at which point Baril suddenly turns around with the hammer in his hand.