Five dead, one critical, NYPD police attacked in Far Rockaway

Five people were stabbed to death, another person is critical and two NYPD police officers were slashed before the alleged attacked was shot by police and died in an incident at a multi-family home on Beach 22nd St. in Far Rockaway on Dec. 3.

At 5:10 a.m. a 911 call for "an assault in progress," according to NYPD Chief Jeffrey Maddrey was made by a young woman who said, "her cousin was killing her family," Maddrey stated at a Sunday morning news conference from Jamaica Hospital, where the two police officers were taken.

When the police got to the house that sits between Brookhaven Avenue and Elk Drive, they saw a man coming out of the house that was on fire carting out luggage, Maddrey said, adding it appears Gordon lit the fire before he left the house.

The officers, a 28-year veteran and the other with 16 years experience, questioned the man now identified as Courtney Gordon, 38, of the Bronx, and Gordon attacked the officers with what is believed to be a kitchen steak knife before one of them shot him. Gordon was taken to a hospital and pronounced dead. One of the officers was stabbed in the neck and chest and the other in the head.

"I commend them, they did an excellent job," Maddrey said, of the officers.

FDNY also responded and got the blaze under control. Outside the home a girl, 11, was found. She was taken to Cohen's Children Hospital and pronounced dead. 

Inside a boy, 12, a man in his 30s and a woman, 44 were also found dead. All were family members. Another woman, 61, was taken to Mount Sinai Hospital, and she is not expected to survive, police said.

It was reported that before police got to the scene, neighbors heard screams then gunshots. The firefighters extinhuished the fire. 

Gordon is said to have a domestic violence charge in the past.

“The scene was chaos, a madman was on a rampage,” Police Benevolent Association President Patrick Hendry said at the news conference. “These two police officers without hesitation, they responded to this job, putting themselves in harm’s way.”

The investigation is continuing police said.