Ramming into another car, Gelman stabbed the driver, Arthur DiCrescento, three times when he confronted him, before carjacking the vehicle.
[7] Afterwards, Gelman abandoned DiCrescento's car just before 1:00 a.m. of February 12[3] and hailed a livery cab before stabbing its driver, Fitz Fullerton.
He then approached another car with a couple inside and attacked the driver, Shelden Pottinger, stabbing him multiple times in the hand.
[3][4] After boarding a northbound 3 train at 34th Street - Penn Station just after 8:00 a.m., he stabbed Joseph Lozito, a ticket seller at Lincoln Center.
According to a January 2012 New York Times story, Gelman knocked on the train conductor's booth and identified himself as a police officer; when the door failed to open, he lunged at Lozito, stabbed him in the head and face.
[18][14] On February 13, 2011, Gelman was arraigned in a Brooklyn courtroom on charges of murder and assault, where he was represented by public defender Michael Baum.
"[19] Although no motive for the murders has yet been offered by the authorities, it has been speculated in the media that the rampage was triggered by Gelman's advances being scorned by Yelena Bulchenko.
Sitting in court next to his attorney, Edward Friedman, Gelman was reported as being "unruly", laughing or yelling at the judge and the family and friends of some of his victims.
[21] In the spring of 2012, Joseph Lozito, who was brutally stabbed and "grievously wounded, deeply slashed around the head and neck", sued police for negligence in failing to render assistance to him as he was being attacked by Gelman.
[25][26] In response to the suit, attorneys for the City of New York argued that police had no duty to protect Lozito[27] or any other person from Gelman.
Lozito also shared his experience pertaining to the attack in an episode of Radiolab podcast titled "No special duty.