Greek American New York City police officer John Hasiotis was one of the lesser known heroes of the New York Islamic terrorist attack in Manhattan. Along with his colleague, Ryan Nash he managed to subdue Sayfullo Saipov, the 29-year-old terrorist who killed 8 people by running them down with a truck last Tuesday. They both responded to a call about an emotionally disturbed person at a high school not far from the World Trade Center when someone reported an accident on the bike path outside.
John Hasiotis and his partner Nash, raced to a gruesome sight: A man in a truck had slammed into a school bus after mowing down people in a bike lane. He was waving guns around and yelling. Nash, 28, told him to drop the weapons and then fired, striking the man once.
Hasiotis and two other officers, Michael Welsome and Kevin McGinn, secured the area, took witness statements and grabbed the guns. And they showed restraint by not firing their weapons into the crowded area, police said. Greek American reporter Nancy Biska wrote on her Facebook page how proud she was about Hasiotis. “Proud of our Greek American John Hasiotis (from Macedonia), partner of Ryan Nash in the recent Manhattan truck attack”, she wrote on her social media wall.