Sini: Suffolk officer responding to incident stabbed in face

A Suffolk County police officer was stabbed several times in the face Saturday afternoon inside a Central Islip home while responding to a domestic incident, authorities said.

The armed suspect was shot and wounded by another officer but still had to be subdued, Police Commissioner Timothy Sini said.

The officer who was stabbed has serious but nonlife-threatening injuries and underwent surgery at Stony Brook University Hospital, Sini said.

The incident unfolded shortly after officers responded to a 911 call from a home on Oakland Avenue about 1:20 p.m., police said.

Officers at the scene learned that an armed man — later identified as Mark Caraway, 40, of Central Islip — was threatening to hurt himself and others in the house, Sini said.

The emergency service unit, Suffolk’s SWAT unit, was then called, and several of those officers entered the home.

“The officer who was stabbed was the first officer through the door,” Sini said.

Another officer shot the suspect once in the abdomen, but he continued to assault the first officer in the basement of the home. Several officers eventually subdued Caraway, according to Sini.

Caraway, who doesn’t live at the residence, was armed with several knives when officers entered the home, according to police spokesman Justin Meyers.

The knife used to stab the officer was recovered in the home, police said.

Caraway was taken to Southside Hospital in Bay Shore, where he was in stable but critical condition, police said.

The wounded officer, who was not immediately identified, joined the department in October 1995 and has been an member of the emergency service section for 12 years, Sini said.

“This is a stark reminder of dangers that officers face every day when they put that uniform on,” Sini said.

Detectives from the Homicide Squad and Internal Affairs Bureau were investigating. Criminal charges were pending.