Machete attacker tosses Molotovs at cops

It was no April Fool’s joke.
Neighbors of the Richmond Hill man who allegedly staged a machete attack and threw Molotov cocktails at police on Tuesday, April 1 are “scared.”
“I’m scared because I have two kids and my sister lives here and she has two kids also,” said Ana Rosas, who lives across the street from the suspect, Felipe Velasquez, 21. “We’re afraid because we just moved here.”
According to police, Velasquez struck his victim, 45-year-old Bernard Hoffman, on the right side of the head with the machete in front of the home Velasquez shares with his uncle at 86-23 123rd Street. Hoffman fended off Velasquez with an umbrella he had been carrying. He made off with the weapon and ran to a neighbor’s house to call police. Hoffman was later taken to NY Hospital Queens in stable condition.
The suspect then fled into his house, where he made his way to the roof.
By this time, officers of the 102nd Precinct had arrived in an unmarked car. As they exited the vehicle, Velasquez tossed what cops referred to as “an improvised explosive device,” setting the car on fire.
“I saw him on the roof and the police car came and he threw a fire bomb at the car,” said Zep Singh, an employee of Kew Gardens Car Service, a private taxi service at the corner of Hillside Avenue and 123rd Street. “To my knowledge, I figured the guy was going crazy or something. He knew what he was doing because he threw it [the Molotov cocktail], then he just took out a cigarette and smoked it like nothing was going on.”
Four more Molotov cocktails followed before firefighters arrived on the scene and extinguished the fires.
Singh, who noted that parents were unable to pick up their children from the nearby day care center because of the incident, also said that Velasquez threw a red five-gallon gasoline container.
Velasquez was taken into custody without incident at about 7:15 p.m. - almost two hours after the initial attack - by NYPD Detectives Robert Zajac and Hassan Hamdy who had gained access to the roof of the home.
He was taken to Jamaica Hospital for evaluation, and is charged with attempted murder, reckless endangerment, assault, multiple counts of criminal possession of a weapon, arson and criminal mischief.
According to reports, Velasquez told cops he went on his rampage because, “I had a bad day.”
“I see him around,” said neighbor Gibran Gafur, 18. “He sits there, he smokes a cigarette, goes to the grocery store, comes back and sits outside again. I’ve never seen him do anything else.”