The next time you hear people call cops trigger-happy or complain about their overtime and pensions, think of Police Officer Terrance Howell, who was riding with his partner in the motorman’s compartment of a No. 3 train Saturday morning, peering into the tunnel for a murderous maniac. There suddenly came a pounding on the door.

Whoever was pounding loudly announced that he was the police. Howell and his partner opened the door to see the very maniac they and the entire NYPD were hunting.

Maksim Gelman was 6 feet of blind, unreasoning rage, and he was reaching for the big knife in his waistband. He had just slashed his latest victim moments before, and there was bright, fresh blood on the blade. Howell was 6-feet-5 of pure, brave righteousness. He pounced on Gelman and brought him down, a tackle where the stakes are your life.

The knife that had killed three and stabbed three others clattered to the floor. Howell’s partner, Police Officer Tamara Taylor, grabbed it. Gelman no doubt would have loved to have made his next victim one of the cops, but he would not be hurting anybody else.   In the next moment, off-duty Detective Marcelo Razzo appeared and helped subdue the raving killer. A civilian jumped in as well.

Afterward, the subway entrance at W. 40th St. and Seventh Ave. told a tale we should not forget.

First, paramedics and cops brought up the latest and last victim, a 40-year-old man bleeding from a knife wound at the back of his head. He was rushed away in an ambulance.

Then, Howell came up the subway steps with the knife in his gloved hand. The blade was shockingly big and must have looked so much bigger when Gelman was reaching for it. The blood on the sides and tip was just beginning to turn brown. There would be no more fresh gore.

Finally, Gelman himself was escorted to the surface, surrounded by cops. The surviving victims and the families of the murdered would be able to tell themselves that at least the maniac had been caught.

And all of us who had been afraid for loved ones traveling the city could rest easy. My younger daughter had been riding this line at just about this time and might have encountered Gelman were it not for all the cops who had joined the manhunt.

Some in the city would have preferred to see Gelman carried out in a body bag, but the cops were there to save lives, not to take one unless they absolutely had to, even if it meant risking their own.

As the cops placed Gelman in the back of a radio car, they were giving us a full measure of the difference between good and evil. The horror had ended with a demonstration of selflessness and courage so deeply ingrained as to be reflex.

Thank you, officers. May God protect you.

(Source: NY Daily News)