The suspect charged with stabbing an NYPD officer in the head who was responding to a 911 call has pleaded not guilty.
Terrance Hale, 26, appeared in court Thursday and was charged with first-degree attempted murder, first-degree assault and other charges in the stabbing last month.
His lawyer filed a notice that his client might argue he's too mentally ill to be held responsible. Attorney Edward McQuat said he couldn't yet elaborate on Hale's psychiatric history.
Officer Eder Loor, 28, was responding to a call by the suspect's mother, who had called police saying her son needed to go to the hospital because he was "acting in an erratic manner."
Police say the officers were escorting Hale out of the apartment building when he suddenly produced a knife and began stabbing Loor. He fled but was caught two blocks away.
Hale has several previous arrests, one for assault with a knife, officials said. A law enforcement official said police had been called several times to the home where he lives with his mother.
Loor was stabbed through the skull with a 3.5-inch blade. Dr. Joshua Bederson, professor and chair of neurosurgery at the hospital, said at the time that Loor was "as lucky as you get." The knife, he said, went deep into Loor's temporal lobe and nicked an artery that, if it had been cut, likely would have killed him.
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He was released from the hospital earlier this month.
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