Dining Off-Duty Cop Stops Fatal Stabbing Rampage in Massachusetts Mall

A stabbing rampage that left two victims dead and several others injured ended when an off-duty police officer fatally shot the suspect.

Plymouth County Sheriff's Deputy Jimmy Creed was off-duty "with his bride, just having dinner," when the chaos unfolded, police sources told ABC News.

They were dining at Bertucci's Italian restaurant in the Galleria Mall in Taunton, about 40 miles south of Boston.

Suspect Arthur DaRosa had walked into the restaurant and "armed himself with a knife and stabbed two people," District Attorney Thomas Quinn said in a statement released early this morning.

Quinn said today that DaRosa's sister told police he had checked himself into a local hospital Monday night and was released Tuesday morning, hours before the attacks.

She told police that her brother was "acting in a disturbed manner and making irrational statements" before checking himself in, Quinn said. He did not release the details of those statements, but said they were "something that, from her perspective, caused concern."

On Tuesday evening, when he started stabbing people at the restaurant, Creed "displayed his badge" and "gave multiple demands for DaRosa to drop the knife" before shooting him once in the abdomen, Quinn said.

It is unlikely that Creed knew that Bertucci's was the third stop in DaRosa's alleged spree that night. The violence reportedly began after he was involved in a car crash at around 7:00 p.m.

Man Shot, Killed by Off-Duty Officer After Fatally Stabbing 2 and Driving Car Into Macy's
DaRosa left his vehicle and "gained access" to a nearby home, where he allegedly stabbed two women who were inside.

He then drove to the Silver City Galleria Mall and crashed into the front door of Macy's. DaRosa assaulted "multiple" people inside the store and then moved on to Bertucci's, police said.

One of the two women from the home, 80-year-old Patricia Slavin, died at a hospital and the second woman, her 48-year-old daughter Kathleen Slavin, "is being treated for life-threatening injuries."