A cop was slashed in the face with a boxcutter while breaking up a fight in Brooklyn over the weekend — becoming another statistic in the 20 percent jump in city knife crimes this year.
Plainclothes Officer Denisha Pierre, 37, was with her Brooklyn North anti-crime team when she responded to the brawl on Hull Street in Bedford-Stuyvesant at around 1:30 a.m. Sunday, according to authorities.
Pierre and her partners were trying to separate several people when she was sliced from ear to neck by Xiomara Velez, 27, officials said.
Her attack marked the 567th slashing or stabbing in the city so far this year compared to 470 for the same period in 2015, according to NYPD data.
Pierre was taken to New York Methodist Hospital for treatment but did not need stitches.
Velez was charged with assault on a police officer, menacing, resisting arrest and possession of a weapon.
The suspect appeared in court Monday toting a bulky arm cast, which her lawyer, Robert Heilbrun, said was to treat the two broken bones she suffered during the melee.
Heilbrun argued that Velez didn’t realize Pierre was a cop when she intervened — and was scared for her life because she had just been attacked by a random, sledgehammer-wielding madman.
“My client was walking home with her niece when someone walked up to them and started to beat them up,” Heilbrun told the judge.
Velez’s distraught husband then yelled from his court seat, “They didn’t identify themselves [as police]!” prompting a reprimand from the bench.
“My client has no idea how this officer was slashed,” Heilbrun continued, adding he didn’t know who owned the boxcutter. “There is a crazy person on the street the police have failed to arrest.”
Velez was held on $25,000 bail.
Mayor de Blasio said Monday that the addition of almost 2,000 new cops this year should help stamp out the recent spate of slashings and make the city safer overall.
“There will be 2,000 more cops on the beat in this city. Nothing is going to contribute to greater safety than that,” the mayor said at a press conference. “Slashings, of course, worry all of us, but there’s not a pattern here as [NYPD] Commissioner Bratton has made clear.”
Additional reporting by Michael Gartland