City
should be proud of Amarjit, hero at 2nd Ave. slashing
Sunday, October 7th 2007, 4:00 AM
Nydailynew
Michael Daly
His sliced ear was hanging off his face and his blood was pooling
at his feet as 56-year-old Amarjit Singh stood on the corner looking
desperately for help.
Then Singh gazed back up Second Ave. toward the Texas Smokehouse
restaurant, where he had been preparing for another long day as
a chef when the bare-chested madman came in and grabbed at least
four knives from the kitchen.
The madman who had slashed Singh and sent him fleeing down to E.
34th St. was now up at the next corner, repeatedly stabbing a 67-year-old
woman outside the Gemini Diner.
Singh instantly made a decision that proved him one of our city's
very best and bravest. This chef from Queens by way of India became
New York royalty as he forgot his own wounds and dashed straight
back into the mortal danger he had just been so lucky to escape.
The madman looked up from the bloodied woman and rose on seeing
the courageous Singh approach. A 25-year-old onlooker named Antionette
Brown watched amazed as the madman slowly backed up. He was clutching
at least four knives but seemed unnerved by Singh's uncommon courage
and selflessness, as if Evil were being vanquished purely by the
power of Good.
"He probably saved her life," Brown later said.
Another representative of Good appeared, in the person of off-duty
Police Officer Gregory Chin stepping from the diner. He identified
himself and ended up shooting the still-crazed madman once in the
stomach only after ordering him five times to drop the knives.
In the meanwhile, Singh grabbed towels and aprons from the Smokehouse.
Onlookers then watched Singh ignore his own wounds as he sought
to stem the woman's bleeding. He was joined by two off-duty New
Jersey firefighters.
Other cops arrived, along with paramedics. The woman and Singh
were rushed to the hospital, as was the gunman.
"Still fighting," a cop later noted.
The area was closed off with crime scene tape. Police identified
the woman as 67-year-old Susan Barron and said she had been attacked
while on her way with her little black Scottish terrier, Velvet,
to Good Shepherd Church on E. 31st St. for the annual blessing of
the pets.
"Obviously not a Brooklyn dog," one officer said. "I
don't want to disparage Manhattan dogs, but a good Brooklyn dog
would have ended it before the cop got there."
The officer looked over to the pile of bloodstained aprons and
towels at the southwest corner of E. 35th St. and Second Ave., where
Singh had knelt to help the woman while his own blood poured down
his face.
"Good guy," the officer said.
A block down at the southwest corner of E. 34th St. and Second
Ave., a disturbingly large bloodstain was turning a dark brown on
the sun-baked sidewalk where Singh had stood looking for help. He
had been bleeding heavily enough that the blood had run along a
seam in the pavement.
But where most sidewalk bloodstains mark only another of the city's
horrors, this irregular, 2-foot-wide patch of gore recorded the
spot where a chef who came here from Punjab two decades ago proved
himself one of the city's great blessings. He was already the father
of three grown children and was known to his family as hardworking,
gentle, friendly and "a very good guy."
He now also becomes kin to such other remarkably good guys as the
construction worker who threw himself atop a stranger as a subway
train bore down on them.
Singh could have continued fleeing down Second Ave. from the madman
who had just slashed him. Or he could have remained on that bloody
spot until help came. He did not.
And after that blood is washed away, we should not forget the choice
Amarjit Singh made on the morning of Oct. 6, 2007, as he stood at
the corner of E. 34th St. and Second Ave. Source- http://www.nydailynews.com/news/2007/10/07/2007-
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