Police say a man stabbed in the abdomen outside the Randall’s Island migrant shelter Sunday morning – the latest of several recent violent incidents at or near the facility that led police to conduct a widespread search for contraband earlier this month.
The attack happened around 10:30 a.m. and sent a 26-year-old man to NYC Health + Hospitals/Harlem, NYPD officials said. They said he was in stable condition Monday.
Just over a week ago, NYPD officers descended on the 3,000-resident shelter to conduct a surprise search for contraband, but found nothing and made no arrests, according to a department spokesperson.
The operation followed a triple-shooting near the shelter that killed 44-year-old resident Sandra Martinez and wounded two others as they gathered June 29 to celebrate the preliminary results of Venezuela’s election.
Violent assaults are not new at the sprawling tent complex, which houses both men and women.
In January, 24-year-old Dafren Canizalez was stabbed and killed at the shelter, and police arrested another resident in connection to the incident.
Two weeks later, another man was stabbed and injured during a fight, and police arrested 18 people at the scene. Six of them were eventually charged with various offenses including criminal weapons possession and reckless endangerment.
Violence has unfolded at or near other shelters around the city — including recently near the facility on Hall Street in Clinton Hill, Brooklyn, where three men were shot and killed in two separate incidents on the same night in July. Police say those two incidents, though only minutes apart, appear unrelated to each other. They’ve arrested and charged one man with fatally shooting two people in front of the facility, and charged a parks worker with shooting and killing a man at a nearby park on Flushing Avenue and Steuben Street.
Migrants living at or near the shelters have told Gothamist they have significant fears for their safety.
Police said they did not make any immediate arrests for Sunday’s stabbing at the Randall’s Island shelter.
This is a developing story and may be updated.