Several readers asked us for details about last Sunday afternoon’s stabbing on a busy sidewalk in the 2200 block of Market St. We now have the police report, and it explains the stabbing originated over an argument about a cigarette.
Bicycle officers were flagged down by eyewitnesses who saw two men fighting near Market St. Shoes and Pie Bar. “Officers immediately crossed the street and discovered the victim was bleeding heavily from several stab wounds,” the report stated. “The assailant, who was standing nearby and appeared calm, was holding a small folding knife in his right hand. The knife blade was closed.”
The suspect told police that he was waiting for the bus when the victim approached him — someone he said he didn’t know — and asked for a cigarette. When he told the suspect no, he said the victim began to punch him. That’s when the suspect stabbed him, the police report said. The victim refused to answer officers’ questions, and he was taken to the hospital.
A witness told police it looked like a “slow motion pushing match on the sidewalk which led the witness to believe both were intoxicated.”
The suspect was arrested for investigation of assault. There’s no word on the victim’s condition, although his stab wounds did not appear to be life-threatening.