Scene of the incident

A mother visiting NewYork from Haiti, is in custody after stabbing her nine-year-old daughter multiple times in the back and head, police said.

The names of the mother and daughter were not immediately released. The stabbing was reported by a family friend at about 10:30 am. A man in the house intervened and held the mother until the police arrived, Police Commissioner Ray Kelly said Tuesday.

“We’re still trying to ascertain the facts, the reasons why this happened,” Kelly said. The commissioner said the mother and the child may have been living here temporarily.

Residents and people, who witnessed the emergency response in the otherwise peaceful middle class Queens neighborhood, were shocked by the violence on Tuesday.

A neighbor said that the girl was waving her arms as she was carried to the ambulance wrapped in a sheet soaked with blood. “When they took her out, she was wrapped in sheets that were soaked in blood,” neighbor Lindsay Fortune said.

“One of the EMTs came out and said, ‘Hurry, hurry. It’s a baby,'” she said.

Read more: Breaking World News Today