By: Elle O
After the guilty plea of David Baril, a New York Supreme Court Justice sentenced him to 22 years of prison. Baril, 32, had gone on a spontaneous hammer assaulting spree over the span of a few hours in 2015. He admitted to the assaults and was finally issued a sentence on July 19, 2017.
The first assault was on May 11, 2015, in the early afternoon around 35th Street and 6th Avenue, he approached a random group of people and tried talking to them, when they walked away, he struck one of them, a 20-year-old man from behind over the head with his hammer. He did the same to a 28-year-old woman sitting on a bench in Union Square Park, then a 33-year-old woman on 17th Street.
Through interviews with witnesses and surveillance video, David Baril was identified as the suspect and two days later was recognized by two police officers around 37th Street and 8th Avenue. Officers Geraldo Casaigne and Lauren O’Rourke came up to him and he once again produced the now, blood encrusted hammer. He bashed at Officer O’Rourke’s back, shoulders, and head repeatedly until he was shot at multiple times into submission by Officer Casaigne.
“For two full days in 2015, New Yorkers were gripped with fear as a hammer-wielding man was on the loose in Manhattan, David Baril randomly attacked three strangers in three separate, public locations in the span of a few hours on a single day. Two days later, the heroic actions of two police officers brought his spree to an end, but not before the defendant turned his hammer on one of the officers.“
– District Attorney Cyrus R. Vance in a press release.
The final conviction was one count of Attempted Aggravated Assault upon a Police Officer and three counts of Second-Degree Assault. During the trial Baril was restrained in a wheelchair and his mental stability was questioned without a formal conclusion. After his prison term, Baril will be on supervised release for five years.
Tags: Assault, NYPD
Photo: Courtesy of the New York Police Department
