Former New York Police detective Bo Dietl says the ending of the department's stop-and-frisk policy is partly to blame for a hatchet attack that injured two police officers on Thursday.
"Next thing that's gonna happen is it's gonna be weapons in subways, attacks in malls. It's gonna be body count," Dietl said Thursday on
Fox News Channel's "Hannity."
Dietl was responding to reports of an
attack on four rookie police officers Thursday afternoon by a hatchet-wielding man, identified by police as Zale Thompson, 32,
Fox News reported. He struck one officer in the right arm and the other in the back of the head before the other two officers shot him dead.
The officer struck in the head underwent surgery and remained in critical but stable condition Friday,
CNN reported.
Police would not confirm whether the attack was tied to terrorism, Reuters reported, but Fox News said that officials are checking for any ties to terrorist groups after the Islamic State (ISIS) issued a call for lone wolf attacks in the United States and its allies.
Fox News also reported that the suspect's Facebook page included posts sympathetic to ISIS.
"America's military is strong abroad, but they have never faced an internal mass revolt," Thompson wrote. "They are weaker at home. We are scattered and decentralized, we can use this as an advantage."
Another post said, "Helicopters, big military will be useless on their own soil. The will not be able to defeat our people if we use guerilla warfare."
Dietl said stop-and-frisk could have prevented the attack.
"They took the handcuffs and they put it on the cops," he said. "They wouldn't let 'em do stop-and-frisk. They couldn't even stop-and-frisk this guy for the hatchet."
A federal judge ruled in 2013 that the policy was a violation of civil rights since it targeted mostly minorities. Former Mayor Michael Bloomberg appealed the decision, but current Mayor Bill de Blasio dropped the appeal when he was inaugurated on Jan. 1.
Dietl said people he knows on the force have told him officers are now afraid to stop and question anybody.
"Now we've got these psychopathic terrorists," he said. "Stop-and-frisk has gotta come back."