A church security guard who was stabbed after confronting a deranged knife-wielding man had been on the job just three months when he had the bloody encounter, a friend told The Post.
The doors of First Presbyterian Church, on 164th Street in Jamaica, would normally be opened but instead were closed tight Saturday in wake of the incident, caretaker Delroy Witter said.
“Trust me, if it could happen to my co-worker, it could happen to any one of us,” Witter said.
“I feel bad for him. He just started here.”
Cops were called to the house of worship around 3:40 p.m. Thursday after the guard went to investigate a complaint that there was a man with a knife acting erratically outside.
The guard approached, only to be knifed in the torso, authorities said.
The victim, who wasn’t publicly identified, then retreated inside the church.
“I went inside (the church) and I saw him lying on the floor,” Witter said.
“Someone was applying pressure to his wound. They had a towel on his stomach.
“It was red because it was soaked in blood — he was bleeding so much.”
Responding officers ordered the man, later identified as Richard Moncrieffe, 59, to drop the knife — but when he didn’t, they shot him, officials said.
“He was advancing on our officers and they had to make a tough decision,” the NYPD’s Chief of Patrol James Chell said, crediting the guard with preventing more bloodshed by stopping the man before he got inside the church’s packed administrative building.
Video appears to show Moncrieffe charging cops with the knife in his hand, police said.
Moncrieffe has a documented history with the NYPD of being an emotionally disturbed person, police sources said.
The guard was taken to Jamaica Hospital, as was Moncrieffe, who was charged with assault, menacing a police officer and criminal possession of a weapon.
Both were expected to survive.
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