A man was stabbed with a machete during a Times Square turf war among CD vendors Thursday, cops and witnesses said.
The territorial conflict over who can sell where broke out around 1 p.m. at W. 45th St. and Broadway, according to a vendor across the street.
“They were fighting and one of them had a big knife and stabbed him in his legs,” said the witness. “There was a lot of blood.”
Another vendor uninvolved in the fracas sat the wounded man down as medics raced to the scene, according to the witness.
“He was just sitting there covered in blood,” the witness said.
The wounded CD vendor was taken to Bellevue Hospital to be treated for stab wounds to both of his legs. He is expected to recover.
The suspects ran off but were caught a short time later. Cops charged Aaron Hamilton, 25, Philip Robertson, 23, and Robert Price, 46, with reckless endangerment and obstructing governmental administration, police said.
Robertson was also hit with a criminal possession of a weapon charge.
Later Thursday, Times Square maintenance workers had already washed away the victim’s blood from the pavement.
“They’re always warring over turf,” the witness said of the men, who he says aggressively push CDs on unsuspecting tourists. “It’s crazy out here.”
The stabbing was the latest spurt of violence that made headlines in Times Square.
Earlier this month, a school chaperone visiting the city from western Pennsylvania vowed to never return to the city after she was randomly knifed in the chest in the area.
Amber Lohr, 36, and the students were shopping for souvenirs as they neared the corner of W. 43rd St. and Eighth Ave. just before 6:15 p.m. May 11.
Lohr, whose teen daughter was among the group, had never visited New York City before 61-year-old Cyril Destin allegedly attacked her.
The woman survived the attack and Destin was arrested and charged with assault and criminal possession of a weapon.
About 360,000 visitors enter the heart of Times Square each day, but pedestrian traffic compared to pre-pandemic levels is still down, according to the Times Square Alliance.
In March, the alliance clocked 287,206 average daily visitors, a 15% decrease from the same month in 2019, when about 322,125 checked out the crossroads of the world.
“We hope the victim recovers quickly from today’s incident and are confident that the NYPD will apprehend those that committed this crime in a swift manner,” said Tom Harris, president of the Times Square Alliance.
“One crime in Times Square is one too many, but we are finding the district to be a safe place thanks to the work of the NYPD Times Square Unit,” he added.
As the city opened back up after COVID in 2021, shootings, assaults and robberies in Times Square spiked, with police sources telling the Daily News at the time the uptick was fueled by hustlers who took over the streets while tourists were away.
Since 2022, the NYPD’s Midtown South Precinct, which covers Times Square and other nearby neighborhoods, has seen a 200% uptick in shooting incidents and a 50% increase in assaults, according to police data.
Rape has also shot up by 40% over the last two years, according to the data.
I guess soon they will have to ban machete
Alan bragg will give the keys to the city for that loser.
You woke a sleeping giant with what you did to Trump