A 24-year-old uniformed NYPD officer assigned to transit foot patrol in Brighton Beach shot and killed a man who attacked him with an 11-inch hunting knife when the cop tried to arrest him for attacking a 78-year-old woman on a street below an elevated subway station Thursday, police said.



Police Commissioner Bill Bratton said the 58-year-old suspect attacked the elderly woman below the Ocean Parkway Q train station around 1:30 p.m., not long after the woman, a stranger to the suspect, had tried to intervene in a separate dispute the suspect had had with a shop owner in a nearby store.



The suspect wrestled the woman to the ground, and she suffered bruises in the altercation, authorities said. The 24-year-old police officer, who heard the commotion while on the subway platform, descended to the street and tried to arrest the suspect, but the man pulled out the hunting knife and stabbed the officer in the neck, Bratton said.



The officer, Fillippo Gugliara, fired two shots, striking the suspect in the torso. The suspect, whose identity is being withheld pending family notification, was pronounced dead at the scene; his knife was recovered.



Authorities said the injured officer, who has been with the department since January 2013, received a few stitches to his neck wound; additional testing showed no internal injuries and he is expected to be OK. Bratton said he would be held at the hospital overnight.



Mayor de Blasio, who also met with the officer and the officer's family, said the cop was in good spirits and was proud of his actions. De Blasio said the city was proud of his bravery as well.





