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.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 d...