A man living in his car near Penn Station in New York became enraged when he found a boot on it Thursday and attacked cops with a meat cleaver before officers took him down in a hail of bullets.

The New York Post reports that Akram Joudeh struck Detective Brian O’Donnell with an 11-inch blade, slicing him from his temple to his throat. After that, cops fired 18 shots at Joudeh, who stretched out on the street in a pool of blood on West 32nd Street near Broadway. He later was taken to Bellevue, where he was listed in critical condition.

Joudeh, 32, who has numerous arrests, had flown into a rage after discovering the boot immobilizing his white Nissan Altima, which was parked on West 30th Street and Broadway. “I saw him trying to break the boot,” said a man who works across the street. “He was doing it for about an hour. He was using a hammer. Other people were telling him to stop, that’s illegal.”

When officers tried to talk to him, Joudeh pulled the cleaver from his waistband and started swinging and then ran toward Seventh Avenue. When he refused to drop the knife, one cop stunned him with a Taser, but Joudeh kept running. Near Seventh Avenue, he climbed onto an NYPD squad car but was tackled by the off-duty O’Donnell, who suffered a 6-inch gash during the struggle. O’Donnell was taken to Bellevue Hospital, where he underwent surgery Thursday evening. Two other officers also were taken to the hospital with minor injuries but were released Wednesday night.

Joudeh apparently has a history of hating the police. In 2013, he was arrested and charged with criminal mischief for smashing a car with a wooden fence post.“I thought it was a detective’s car,” he allegedly told cops.Former neighbors also noted his animosity toward the police. “He was crazy and weird,” said one, who also said there were altercations and that neighbors called the cops on Joudeh. “He was like, ‘F- -k the cops.’ He don’t like police," said the neighbor. “One day, they [cops] had to throw him on the floor. It’s not the first time they ever came here and hauled him away.”

 

Joudeh has 15 prior arrests, including one on July 27 after he was found carrying knives near a synagogue in the Manhattan Beach neighborhood of Brooklyn. The other arrests stretching back to 2009 include charges for driving while impaired by drugs, criminal possession of a weapon, menacing with a weapon and criminal trespassing, according to NBC New York. 

Is this another incident of the so-called "knife jihad"? Last November Fox News reported that "the knife has replaced suicide bombings, car attacks and random shootings as the new tool of choice for waging jihad on Israel," and that tactic has since spread to Europe. As recently as this August 30 a female police officer was slashed in the throat by a Muslim attacker outside a police station in Toulouse, France, as WND reported.

Two years ago, a hatchet-wielding man ambushed a group of NYPD officers in Jamaica, Queens, gashing one in the head. That suspect, described as a self-radicalized "lone wolf terrorist" by the police, was shot and killed. 

But in Thursday's incident, a federal official told NBC News "based on what we know of how this started, and on his priors, we don't currently think this was an act of terrorism."