He killed a man with an ice pick — but the Parks Department had no problem paying him to use a spiked spear in a green space where kids fill the playgrounds and joggers ply the paths, The Post has learned.
Anthony Purdie, a 54-year-old career criminal who served 14 years for manslaughter and on Monday allegedly slashed a subway rider who woke him up on a station bench, was employed in November through a welfare-to-work program.
This garbage skewer allegedly used by stabbing suspect Anthony Purdie, who was employed as a Park worker in Forest Park.Purdie was assigned to Queens’ Forest Park, where he spent his days skewering empty Coke cans and candy wrappers left behind by children and other litterbugs.
“I don’t understand how you have someone like this, who is a murderer, around children, and I don’t get why the city would allow our members to have to work with a murderer,” said Marlena Giga, a treasurer with Local 983 of District Council 37, which represents blue-collar city parks workers.
“And to make matters worse, they’re giving him a picker with a long pole and telling him to ‘grab and stab’ [trash],” she fumed.
Purdie was convicted of killing Vincent Robinson of Brooklyn with an ice pick in 1991.
“That could have very easily been a city worker who was attacked,” Giga said.
She said Purdie has gotten into arguments and slept on the job.
A Parks spokesperson refused to say how much Purdie was paid, but said the department “conducts background checks prior to hiring all employees, but does not reject applicants based solely on prior convictions.”
Purdie was fired after his arrest on Monday.
