Suspect charged with hate crime after Upper West Side double stabbing

Raul Morales was charged with attempted murder as a hate crime after he stabbed an Asian man and a Jewish man in separate attacks on the Upper West Side. The 51-year-old was arrested after the assaults, which took place just after 1:30 p.m. on Thursday, July 23, 2026, roughly a block apart in Manhattan’s residential neighborhood bordering Central Park.

Under New York’s hate-crime law, authorities must show that the underlying offense was selected because of a victim’s race, religion, ancestry, or another protected characteristic, or that bias was at least a substantial part of the reason for the attack. The first victim was a 57-year-old Asian man stabbed once in the back or torso near West 84th Street and Central Park West, while the second was a 50-year-old Jewish man, wearing a kippah, stabbed in the chest or stomach near West 86th Street and Amsterdam Avenue.

There was no known link between Morales and either victim, or between the two victims themselves. Victim and witness statements also led detectives to evaluate whether Morales yelled “Allahu Akbar” during both attacks. Morales left the knife at the scene and fled on foot before barricading himself inside an apartment at 589 Amsterdam Avenue.

The NYPD Emergency Service Unit took Morales into custody after a brief negotiation at about 2:45 p.m. Commissioner Jessica S. Tisch said the two victims were taken to Mt. Sinai-St. Luke’s Hospital and were expected to survive. Tisch also said Morales had no known mental health history with the NYPD, although investigators believed mental health may have been a factor.

By July 24, Morales was facing hate-crime charges in connection with at least one of the stabbings. The Justice Department was joining the investigation.