Badge Saves Rookie Cop From Attacker’s Blade

[Bababoosky 24]

From Queens Chronicle...

A rookie cop’s badge miraculously prevented him from being stabbed by a knife-wielding Howard Beach man outside St. Helen’s Church last week.

  Joseph Leonardi, 51, was allegedly driving his 1996 Buick erratically near the church last Thursday before trying to take down the 10-foot-by-4-foot wooden sign near its entrance. When two men questioned Leonardi, he allegedly ran across the street, got into his car and tried to run them over. His car jumped the 83rd Street sidewalk and narrowly missed several pedestrians. Juan Velez, who was visiting his girlfriend, pulled Sister Hannah Cox, a 72-year-old St. Helen’s nun, out of Leonardi’s path, according to Vinny Brown, who lives nearby.

  After striking a street sign and brick fence in front of a house roughly 100 yards from the church, Leonardi exited his car and purportedly chased four school-aged children down 83rd Street with a steak knife, screaming at them incoherently.

  Police Officer Stuart Ingram and Sgt. Daniel Peterson, both of the 106th Precinct, responded to a radio call reporting the incident. Ingram reportedly struck Leonardi on the arm with a baton, but Leonardi was still able to lunge at the cop with his weapon. Leonardi’s blade snapped into four pieces when it hit the badge over Ingram’s breast.

  While arresting the still-struggling suspect, officers observed that Leonardi smelled of alcohol and had watery eyes, according to District Attorney Richard Brown. Leonardi refused to take a sobriety exam, but later admitted that he had consumed three martinis before eating dinner Thursday night, Brown added.

  Ingram, out of the Police Academy only two months, was taken to Jamaica Hospital Medical Center and treated for a cut on his finger.

  “I’m just glad everyone was okay and nobody got injured,” Ingram said.

  Pointing out that less than a month ago Police Officer Joseph Cho was attacked while patrolling an Elmhurst street, Brown said that Ingram’s near-stabbing “underscores yet again the dangers faced by New York City police officers in the performance of their duty.”

  In addition to the charge of attempted murder, Leonardi faces charges of driving while intoxicated, endangering the welfare of children, attempted aggravated assault upon a police officer, reckless endangerment, menacing, resisting arrest and criminal possession of a weapon. If convicted, he faces up to 25 years in prison.

  Though shocked by the allegation that Leonardi attempted to stab Ingram, one of Leonardi’s 90th Street neighbors was not surprised to hear that alcohol was involved in the incident. “He drinks a lot, that’s the problem,” she said.

  Leonardi lived with his wife and two children in his 90th Street house before the couple divorced and the three left several years ago.

  Neighbors speculated that Leonardi was unemployed at the time of his arrest. His attorney, Todd Greenberg, said that Leonardi was at one point a partial owner of a limousine company.

  About the Thursday incident, Greenberg said that Leonardi didn’t intend to kill anyone. In an apparent “break from reality,” Leonardi thought that he was being attacked by three different people.

  He believes that Leonardi’s mental health will be an issue in the up coming proceedings. “It’s just not in him to hurt someone,” Greenberg said.

[Oswegowind 17]

That story is kind of old...the better story was in the paper the next day. Same cop is was canvassed for the job of firefighter and was offerred a position in the next academy. Still waiting to see a story on his decision!

[MGMedic 0]

He has 2 uncles in the dept. and his father is Chief Ingram, until recently, I believe, chief of SOC. Shouldn't really be a hard decision.