Family and friends of the man police shot and killed at the Grand Central subway station Saturday said he had no history of violence — and say the NYPD’s description of a man slashing older people with a machete doesn’t sound like the person they knew.
“Him going around stabbing somebody and trying to kill people? That’s not my nephew,” Regina Baker said in a phone interview on Monday, two days after an NYPD officer fatally shot 44-year-old Anthony Griffin in Midtown.
Officials said Griffin attacked three people with a machete at the station, refused officers’ repeated commands to drop his knife and moved toward the officers with the weapon extended.
The three people authorities say Griffin attacked — an 84-year-old man, a 65-year-old man and a 70-year-old woman — were expected to survive their injuries. Officials said they became aware of the attacks when someone alerted two detectives at Grand Central that morning that a man with a knife had assaulted multiple people in the subway, and the detectives found one of the victims coming up the stairs.
But some of Griffin’s relatives and longtime friends said they are struggling to understand police accounts that he told officers his name was “Lucifer,” and that he caused the carnage in the Saturday morning attacks. In interviews on Monday, they told Gothamist they wished authorities had handled the incident differently and done more to avoid using lethal force against Griffin.
“Everybody’s clueless on what happened,” Richard Acevedo said, standing next to a few of Griffin’s friends on the Mott Haven block where they all grew up. Several feet away, neighbors added candles and photos to a growing memorial for Griffin, who was known locally by his rap name, Fox 5.
“He was always positive, never negative,” Acevedo said.
Anthony Griffin, 44, in a photo from a memorial at his old Mott Haven building.
According to the NYPD, Griffin has been previously arrested on charges in the city of grand larceny and criminal trespassing, and was arrested a third time outside of the city. Officials haven’t described any history of violence, and said the NYPD does not have any records of mental health incidents involving Griffin.
Rodney Montgomery said that he met Griffin in their building when Griffin was just 4 years old, and Montgomery was 12. He said Griffin never showed signs of violence, and he wasn’t aware of Griffin having any serious mental health issues.
“I watched that boy grow up,” Montgomery said. “We’re not condoning what he did, but you didn’t have to take his life.”
“They could have tased him,” Baker said, her voice quavering with emotion. She called for police to release the officers’ body-camera footage of the incident, saying it would help provide closure for her family. In a statement following Saturday’s incident, Mayor Zohran Mamdani said the footage would be released as police continued their investigation.
Baker said she found out about the incident from a friend on Facebook. “I just fell to the floor,” she said. “That’s my sister’s only child.”
The NYPD confirmed Monday that officers did not use Tasers in the incident. Police Commissioner Jessica Tisch said during a press briefing Saturday that “officers were confronted with an armed individual who had already injured multiple people and was continuing to pose a threat.”
She said the officers “attempted to de-escalate” the situation and even offered to get Griffin help, but when he ignored their commands to disarm, they “took decisive action” to stop him.
The NYPD patrol guide allows police to use Tasers to help subdue “aggressive subjects” and people experiencing mental health crises. The guide instructs officers that a Taser is considered a “less lethal device” that can be used to gain someone’s compliance, on the same level of force as pepper spray.
Griffin's memorial on E. 138th Street.
But in about a third of cases when members of the NYPD used Tasers in 2024, the devices failed to effectively subdue people, according to the department’s latest annual use-of-force report.
NYPD data shows Tasers have failed at a similar rate in recent years, and police have shot multiple people — sometimes fatally — after Tasers were ineffective.
Baker said Griffin was always very close with his mother, who died of cancer several years ago, and moved to his own apartment in Queens in 2024 after spending most of his life in the Bronx.
“He was a giving, caring person. He loved people. He would sit with people and he would just talk to them about life,” Baker said. “That’s why I can’t believe this.”
