SEATTLE - A man was taken to the hospital after he was stabbed in the abdomen during a dispute on Randall's Island, in New York City. The incident happened during the morning of Aug. 11 outside a nearby shelter that houses about 3,000 people on any given night.
Upon arrival, NYPD officers observed a 26-year-old male victim with a stab wound to the abdomen, a spokesperson for NYPD confirmed to Fox News Digital. EMS transported the victim to NYC Health and Hospitals + Harlem in stable condition. "There are no arrests and the investigation remains ongoing," the spokesperson added Monday.
The Randall's Island shelter has been under the spotlight for the past weeks. In late July, a woman who was staying at the shelter was shot and killed, while two other people were also injured. The gunman opened fire on a crowd gathered in a park for the results of Venezuela's presidential election.
And just last week, NYPD swept the same shelter to look for drugs and weapons, forcing its occupants to wait outside. Authorities did not find anything.
The shelter on Randall's Island is the largest in the entire city for asylum seekers. The complex, which includes a series of tents for sleeping and others for dining and bathroom facilities, sits on sports fields at the island's southernmost tip and is located just a few miles away from downtown Manhattan.
The shelter opened in August 2023 amid a dramatic influx of migrants as Republican Texas Gov. Greg Abbott ordered them to be bussed from the border directly to Democratic-led sanctuary cities like New York.
Migrants who spoke to media say bolstered police presence at the Randall's Island shelter has done little to stop any illegal activities. "It's very unsafe," Pilar Lopez, a Venezuelan migrant, said in Spanish to CBS. "People pass illegal things in front of them [officers] and they don't do anything."
During an Aug. 6 press conference, Deputy Mayor Anne Williams-Isom said officials were trying not to be "heavy-handed" in their approach to disperse campers evicted from the shelter. "That's not okay, and, again, we're not trying to be heavy-handed. But if you've had your time, you've had your case management, and you have to leave, you have to really move on," Williams-Isom said.
The shelter at Randall's Island has seen its fair share of tragedies so far this year. In January, a 24-year-old Venezuelan man was fatally stabbed inside the shelter. Also in January, a brawl ended with another young man being hospitalized with stab wounds and more than a dozen people were arrested.
Most recently in July, police impounded more than a dozen unregistered cars and scooters linked to asylum seekers at the shelter.
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