Dog owner wrapped up in Central Park pooch stabbing killed in police shootout in New Jersey

One of the dog owners involved in a headline-grabbing fatal pooch stabbing in Central Park last year was killed in a New Jersey police shootout in June, The Post can reveal.

Karl Gregory, 46, was shot and killed just after midnight June 13 inside the Royal Albert’s Palace hotel in the Fords section of Woodbridge Township, according to the New Jersey Attorney General’s Office.

The gunfight – which left two police officers injured – came just as a hearing was about to take place in the baffling Manhattan dog stabbing case that drew nationwide attention last summer.

According to police sources, Gregory at the time of his death had turned from a suspect to the victim in the case that was sparked by a scuffle between his three mini pit bulls and a 15-year-old German Shepherd mix named Eli, who was fatally stabbed.

Right after the incident, the doomed dog’s owner Brian Cornwell told police and reporters that Gregory’s pooches attacked Eli while he was walking through the park after dinner with his wife and their other pet, a small chihuahua, on a Saturday in June 2023.

Cornwell alleged that during the scuffle between the dogs, Gregory stabbed Eli with a switchblade, and Cornwell pepper-sprayed Gregory and his dogs.

Police initially printed wanted fliers with Gregory’s photo, asking to identify him in order to question him about the dog stabbing near East 106th Street and Fifth Avenue in the park.

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Other Central Park dog owners told The Post at the time that Gregory’s pooches had been a known nuisance in the northeast quadrant of the park.

A few days later, police told reporters the stabbing was an accident , and that Gregory had been trying to cut the dogs’ tangled leashes when he missed and stabbed Eli by mistake.

Months later in February, investigators slapped Cornwell with four misdemeanor charges, including assault in the third degree and menacing in the second degree — as prosecutors alleged that he was the true dog stabber, court records show.

When Gregory died, he was being sought by the NYPD for questioning about a different crime – a retaliatory shooting in East Harlem on June 7 that left an innocent bystander brain dead, according to police sources.

Officers in Edison, New Jersey were alerted to Gregory’s presence in the Garden State on the night of June 12 by an automated license plate reader. Edison officers then notified the NYPD, according to the attorney general’s office.

Cops from the Edison and Woodbridge police departments and NYPD officers descended on the hotel on King Georges Post Road where they found Gregory’s empty car outside, the AG’s office said.

Officers went inside the hotel to interview witnesses when, at 12:21 a.m., the doors to the elevator opened and Gregory emerged “carrying multiple bags,” which he then dropped on the ground while reaching into a black backpack, the attorney general’s office said.

Gunfire was “exchanged” between Gregory and Woodbridge Officers Drew Krupinski and Justin Nerney and NYPD Detective Matthew Mauro, according to a press release from the office, which does not say who fired first.

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Gregory was hit and died at the scene, according to the attorney general’s office, which noted a handgun was recovered nearby.

Officer Nerney and Det. Mauro were also shot and taken to a New Brunswick hospital for treatment and have since been released, the AG said.

New Jersey’s Office of Public Integrity and Accountability is investigating Gregory’s death.

The prosecution’s case in the dog stabbing relied on Gregory as a witness, and the Manhattan District Attorney’s Office moved to drop the charges after his death, said Cornwell’s attorney, F. William Salo.

Prosecutors had claimed that Cornwell started the fight in the park that day, was carrying a knife and stabbed both Gregory’s dog and his own pooch Eli, according to Salo.

Cornwell was also accused of unleashing pepper-spray on Gregory during the fight and of brandishing the knife as Gregory ran away, Salo said.

But Cornwell insisted he was innocent, maintaining to The Post that Gregory was the dog killer.

Cornwell added he was holding a keychain bike tool in his hand during the altercation, not a knife.

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His attorney had filed a motion to dismiss the case before Gregory’s death.

During a planned hearing about the motion June 13 — just hours after Gregory had been killed in the shootout — Salo said prosecutors moved to toss the case, which has since been sealed.

Cornwell said he believes the case against him was payback for his filing a complaint last August with the NYPD’s internal watchdog — the Civilian Complaint Review Board — claiming the investigating detective wasn’t properly looking into the case.

“It took four days for detectives to even speak with me. Then I was told my investigation wasn’t a priority,” Cornwell claimed in an interview.

He’s now mulling a lawsuit against the NYPD and DA’s office.

Gregory’s friend Marlon Delgado, meanwhile, is having a hard time making sense of his old basketball teammate’s violent death.

Delgado had known Gregory since 1996 when they played together at Central Connecticut State University.

Delgado told The Post he will remember Gregory as a “provider and protector” to his young daughter Kali.

“The conversations we would have were addressing those types of issues. We would have conversations about gentrification and gun violence in the neighborhood, and what needed to be done and politics and community action,” Delgado recalled.

“So none of this makes sense.”

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