Assemblyman Injured at Armstrong Center Opening by Fleeing Man

In a jarring interruption to a day of celebration, Assemblyman Jeffrion L. Aubry of Queens was knocked over and injured Thursday morning at the opening ceremony of the new Louis Armstrong Center in Queens by a man who ran through the crowd after exiting his car, witnesses said.

Assemblyman Aubry had just spoken at the center’s opening when the man collided with him. Mr. Aubry’s head appeared to be bleeding, they said, and he was taken away on a stretcher with his head bandaged.

Aaron Prashad, 41, an emergency medical technician, said that he had watched as a man driving a silver Honda pulled onto the curb and accelerated toward the crowd, getting close to people before going into reverse and jumping out of the car as police officers approached. The man then sprinted through the crowd, he said, as officers gave chase.

“He was definitely going to drive through,” said Mr. Prashad, who was born and raised in Queens.

Mary Claire Miskell, a publicist who works with the Armstrong Center, said she felt the man brush past her as he ran near the front of the crowd. She said Mr. Aubry was walking down from the stage, where he had just given a speech, when the man collided with him.

“They made basically full-body contact chest to chest and it knocked him over,” Ms. Miskell said.

Mr. Aubry was taken to Elmhurst Hospital.

“The Assemblymember was treated and released from Elmhurst Hospital for a laceration over his eye,” Tyquana Rivers, a political consultant who works with Mr. Aubry, said in a statement Thursday evening. “He is in great spirits and doing well.”