EAST FLUSHING, NY — A worker at an unregistered East Flushing daycare center stabbed five people, including three infants, and tried to kill herself early Friday morning, the NYPD said.
The 52-year-old woman terrorized the center at 43-67 161st St. around 3:40 a.m., stabbing the baby boy and two infant girls along with a father and a female coworker, according to police.
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The children, who range in age from just three days to one month, were hospitalized in “critical but stable” condition, Assistant Chief Juanita Holmes said.
Cops who responded found the attacker unconscious with self-inflicted slash wounds to her wrists, which they treated with a turniquet, Holmes said. She is in police custody at an area hospital, an NYPD spokesman said.
Multiple apartments are located in the same building as the center, where nine babies and several parents were present at the time of the attack, Holmes said.
The other woman who worked at the center had multiple stab wounds to her torso, while the dad was stabbed once in the leg, according to police.
Police are still investigating what led to the attack, Holmes said. A meat cleaver and a butcher knife were recovered at the scene.
Police have seen paperwork indicating the facility was a nursery, Holmes said. But the building’s address does not appear in state or city databases of licensed child care providers. A company called Mei Xin Care Inc. is registered there, but no phone number is listed for the business.
The state’s Office of Children and Family Services is investigating whether the facility was being run as an illegal day care, The Wall Street Journal reported.
Someone complained to 311 about screaming children at the building in 2011, Holmes said.
The Associated Press contributed reporting.
(Lead image: Five people were stabbed at an East Flushing daycare center early Friday morning. Photo by Mary Altaffer/Associated Press)