Eyewitnesses described how the man waved the sword around while standing on the store’s glass staircase as worried shoppers looked on.
Local resident Nancy Birnbaum told the NY Post she was in the store when she saw the individual suddenly unsheathe the weapon.
“Usually the staircase is mobbed with people, but this time it wasn’t. There was a guy in the mid part of the staircase kneeling,” she told the Post.
Birnbaum described the man’s face as looking “a little contorted and twisted,” explaining that at first she she thought he was doing “some sort of performance art, but then he pulls out this sword with a huge two-foot-long blade and it was dead obvious that it was a real sword.”
She added, “I’ve never been so terrified in my entire life.”
A video posted online shows the man sitting on the store’s spiral staircase before standing up and swinging the sword against the handrail. At the same time, concerned staff keep customers away from the staircase – it’s not clear if there were any cops on the scene when the video was captured.
Another witness, Luis Apolo, told Gothamist he saw the man “talking loudly to one of the employees” shortly before he moved to the staircase with the sword.
Officers were reportedly able to apprehend the man without further incident. Named as 30-year-old Hsu Chien, he was later taken to a nearby medical center for a psychiatric assessment.
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