NEW YORK (1010 WINS) — The day after a stabbing spree by an emotionally disturbed man left three New Yorkers dead, Mayor Eric Adams restated support for a controversial directive he first introduced in 2022 that allows city officials the legal authority to involuntarily provide care to those suffering from severe mental health issues.
“Everybody said I was inhumane, that we just want to institutionalize our people, well, this is the result of that,” Adams said in reference to the killing spree. “This is the result of not taking actions and ignoring people who need help.”
Ramon Rivera, a 51-year-old homeless man with a history of arrests and severe mental illness, used kitchen knives to kill three people over the course of two and a half hours in Manhattan on Monday.
He was charged with three counts of first-degree murder for fatally stabbing 36-year-old Angel Lata Landi as he worked in Chelsea; a 67-year-old man fishing on the East River in Kips Bay; and 36-year-old Wilma Augustin, mother to an 8-year-old, as she walked in Midtown East.