A Bay Shore man was arrested after allegedly stabbing a Suffolk County police officer while trying to flee the scene of an attempted theft shortly after midnight on May 6, authorities said.
An anonymous caller alerted police that two men were allegedly trying to steal from cars on Gibbs Road in Amity Harbor. When First Precinct officers arrived, they arrested one suspect — Marcello Martinez, 19, of North Babylon — while the other fled, police said.
The officers soon found the second suspect — Steven Vasquez, 22, of Bay Shore — hiding under a car parked outside of a home on Gibbs Road, police said. During his attempt to run away, Vasquez stabbed one of the officers in the groin and slashed him in the face, said Suffolk County Police Commissioner Kevin Catalina.
“I think I gotta throw a tourniquet on,” the injured officer — whose bloodied hand can be seen on video at one point — is heard saying in his body cam footage.
A fellow officer applied a tourniquet to the man’s right upper right thigh, where he was stabbed, police said. He was taken to a local hospital and later released. The Suffolk County Police Department declined to give any further updates about the officer’s status or identify the officer.
“The dangers are apparent,” Catalina said during a May 6 news conference. “This is what they [cops] deal with every day. They’re out there, at midnight, trying to keep people safe.”
Vasquez is being charged with assault, resisting arrest, menacing a police officer, grand larceny and criminal possession of a weapon. Martinez is being charged with possession of burglary tools and stolen property.
Both men are due in court on May 7 to be arraigned. Attorney information for the duo was not immediately available.
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