Officer Fatally Shoots Woman After Stabbing
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A police officer shot and killed a woman in Staten Island yesterday as she lunged at him with a 6-inch blade held with both hands over her head, police officials said.
Five officers responded to the scene at 8:17 a.m. after a maintenance worker witnessed the woman, Stephanie Lindboe, 65, attacking a neighbor with a knife. He called 911. As officers arrived, a second witness, who said he had tried to help Lindboe before she threatened to kill him, called down to the officers from his second-floor apartment, saying, “You better get your guns out. She’s stabbing somebody,” police said.
Entering the building on Bay Terrace in the New Dorp section of Staten Island, the officers first saw the victim, Linda Padula, 58, slumped in the doorway of her apartment, bleeding profusely from her neck. Police said that as a sergeant began tending to Ms. Padula, Lindboe’s door swung open and she charged at the two of them. The distance between the two doors was less than 10 feet.
“Put down the knife, put down the knife,” witnesses heard the officer say. When she refused, the sergeant fired twice, missing once and then hitting her in the left side of the chest. She was pronounced dead at Staten Island University Hospital soon after. Ms. Padula was listed in serious condition. She was cut over the right eye, on her neck, and on her upper shoulder, police said.
Lindboe had a history of psychiatric problems dating to 1973 and was hospitalized as recently as March of last year, police said. She has one prior arrest, but the case is sealed.
The dispute between the two women may have been over Lindboe’s cat, “Dickie,” police said. The cat was found nearby with a cut running from its eye to its neck and was bleeding heavily. Neighbors told police that several residents in the two-story apartment building had complained about the cat’s urinating and defecating in the hallway. There were also earlier complaints that Lindboe was raising rats to feed the cat, police said.
The shooting is the second time in a week that a police officer has shot an emotionally disturbed person. On Monday, police shot and killed a Bronx man as he was attacking several of his family members, including an 18-month-old child.
