NYPD Detective Brian O’Donnell was released from the hospital yesterday where he was recovering from being slashed by a man wielding a machete in midtown Manhattan Thursday afternoon. In a bizarre set of circumstances, Akram Judah, formerly of Queens, NY was attempting to cut a boot off of his illegally parked car when two NYPD officers approached him and he produced the meat cleaver. Evidently he was in town to protest his deportation notice since he is…wait for it…a Palestinian national.

Cops were called to the scene when a 911 caller described “an erratic man” shouting “Allahu Akbar!”, or (say it with me because we all know the words) “God is great” in Arabic.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=A1ZK0UdExeM

Evidently this man had been investigated by both police and the FBI and was determined not to be a terrorist threat. Ok folks, really? I mean if it walks like a duck, and screams “Allahu Akbar!” before burying a meat cleaver in a cops head-hey, do ya think maybe (just maybe) he has graduated to being a terrorist? Is not the Webster definition of a terrorist “One who commits terrorism”? I think that running through a crowded city street brandishing an 11″ meat cleaver in the middle of the day certainly qualifies as inspiring terror-even in New York City.

Detective Brian o’Donnell just happened to be in the neighborhood as he was going to catch a train at Penn Station when Judah, waving an 11″ meat cleaver, ran past him. Even though he was off duty, O’Donnell gave chase and ended up confronting the man with other officers outside of Jack’s 99 Cent Store between Sixth and Seventh Avenues. An eyewitness account of the insane scene appeared in  the New York Daily News:

“Drop it! Drop it!” the cops screamed repeatedly, according to witnesses. But he refused.

Cops used a stun gun on the enraged man, but it had no effect, said James O’Neill, who takes over as police commissioner this weekend.

O’Donnell, a 16-year NYPD veteran from Long Island, tried to bring the drama to a close as Joudeh leaped onto the front grille of a responding squad car.

“The detective ran from across the street and knocked him off the car and pushes him into the UPS truck,” said NYPD Deputy Commissioner for Counterterrorism John Miller. “That’s when the suspect hits him in the face with the meat cleaver.”

After that, the cops shot him up to six times and witnesses thought he had been killed. According to  the article the police fired 18 shots in the confrontation. A police spokesman explained:

“He had just attacked an off-duty officer who had a 6-inch gash on his face,” O’Neill said. “He had an 11-inch meat clever. They fired until the threat was stopped.”

I, for one, support the actions of not only Detective O’Donnell, but his compatriots at the NYPD. If a madman were running down the streets of my city brandishing a bloody meat cleaver and slashing cops, I would hope that the police would open fire and not case and desist until the threat was neutralized.

Detective O’Donnell was released from New York’s Bellevue Hospital yesterday and was greeted with cheers from his fellow Officers and family members upon his release. I would like to ask you to join them, and me, in thanking Detective O’Donnell for his incredible bravery in the face of an incredibly frightening situation. We should focus on these real heroes in this insane times.