i witnessed a stabbing

i watched a woman stab another woman in the back.

here is the story from the washington post.

here is my version:

father, his wife natasha and i went shopping, ending up at nordstrom around 7 pm.

as we walked to the escalator to get from the second to the third level, i heard screaming. thinking it was a couple or a parent and child arguing, i ignored the yelling, but it grew louder. we stepped onto the escalator, and a woman screamed,

"she just stabbed her! go back down, go back down!"

unable to understand what was happening--this kind of event is unbelievable--we remained on the escalator heading up to the scene of the stabbing.

the saleswoman ran from the stabbing to the down escalator, heading from the third level to the second, yelling at us,

"run down the up escalator, go down, go down!"

the woman below me managed to do so. i tried to rush down, but i was too high up, as was my father and natasha.

i felt nothing.

i just wanted information.

as we walked off the escalator onto the third level and stepped around to get to the down escalator, i scanned the scene, maybe looking for an angry woman out for blood, but noticed a woman walking from the clothing racks.

she seemed too calm.

5'6", in her 40s, in a blue button-front shirt untucked from a pair of tan pants. her hair was a somewhat unkempt short afro, she would not stand out in a crowd.

her hands were down at her sides, in her right hand she held a large kitchen knife, the kind from horror movies.

i stopped in my tracks. i didn't know how i would react if she came toward us--that was beyond my scope of thinking. i just wanted to see her and her moves. if i could see her, then i was ok, i think my brain thought.

three or four of us remained on the third level. almost everyone else--customers and employees--had evacuated the building.

a straggling shopper in a pink sweater was running toward the down escalator. she didn't pay attention to the woman with the knife and kind of skipped onto the elevator, ahead of her. thinking she was safe, she began folding her jacket.

the woman with the knife stepped onto the escalator behind her.

after a beat, the woman with the knife began stabbing the customer in the pink sweater.

it seemed as if it was almost not going to happen.

i couldn't scream or move.

the woman in the pink sweater ran down the steps, but the stabber followed her, sticking the knife repeatedly between her shoulder blades.

i lost sight of them.

i ran around to see if we should go down to level two, but then realized the woman with the knife was down there and stopped. the we saw the blood on the floor that had dripped off the knife on level three. i stepped in it, but there wasn't enough to trail.

a knife blade lay on the tiles next to the escalator, which was revolving bloody steps.

the stabber was on the second level, still holding the knife, this time with more blood on it.

[i learned that the second victim ran into the garage and collapsed there]

a man told the woman to "drop the knife"

she waited a beat and dropped it. she never said a word or made a sound.

he then ran up to her and handcuffed her [i found out he was an off-duty fbi agent shopping].

shook-up customer who got stuck with us on the third level was the first to see the knives moments before the stabbing had begun--she told me the woman had four kitchen knives in one hand. this would support the existence of the extra blade on the floor i saw before i spoke to this shopper.

an employee saw the stabber attack the first victim. the stabber said nothing, just started poking the knife into the woman's abdomen and back.

i got as many facts as i could and called the washington post, where my columbia j-school alumnus mitra kalita is a reporter. they quoted me in the story.

i didn't even think to be a witness for the police.

Comments

[Ashraf]

Couldn't you have done anything to help? Was it lack of compassion that kept you from warning the woman that she was about to be stabbed? If that is the case, don't you feel partially responsible? If it was in your power to do something to help, such as warning the woman in the pink sweater, then you should have done so, especially considering the utility of your action, its benefit for the woman, and the comparative lack of suffering such action would bring upon yourself.

[irina]

what an interesting response.

no, considering that what took place spanned about 3-4 seconds between the time of my sighting of the knife and the time of her stabbing the second woman and the fact that they were travelling down the escalator and i was about 20-30 feet from the entrance to the escalator barely able to comprehend what was happening, no, i was unable to help. withing 2-3 seconds of her stabbing the second woman, the fbi agent had a gun on her and she had dropped the knife.

[garth breaks]

I was stabbed in the abdomen at a graduation party when I was 19. I remember looking down at the wound which had swollen to the size of an egg, protruding a solid 1-2 inches from just left of my navel, spilling blood clear to my shoes.
I didn't think it was too bad, perhaps movies had conditioned me to believe that all severe stabbings are slashings. I just remember looking at this narrow little slit that wouldn't stop bleeding and thinking about how I may have to cancel plans to go grab BLT subs with my pals after the party.
I also learned that shock is a pretty amazing thing that night - my plan was to continue hanging out and have it checked out later in the evening or the next morning. Thankfully the paramedics refused to leave without me (5 others were stabbed as well) and begrudgingly, I hit the hospital on the condition that a friend of mine pick up a sub for me.
Several hundred stiches and staples later I awoke to a morphine induced fog with a catheter in my bladder, a feeding tube in my nose and a long road to recovery.
The scar from the wound itself is no more than an inch, though the scars from my related surgery would likely top 1.5 feet if put together end to end.
Don't know why I just detailed all that out for you irina, frankly, it's not something I generally talk about, especially to complete strangers. Perhaps I just want to give you the perspective of the victim and let you know that what you've witnessed is undoubtedly shocking and disturbing, but sadly more common than you might imagine.
I hope you truly are comfortable with the knowledge that there's nothing you could have done and trust that you're a solid enough character that had there been an opportunity to safely intervene, you would have.

[Jim]

Ashraf, that's a horrible thing to say. What an ass. May you hope you never are in a similar situation only to have someone blame you when there was nothing you could have done.

[James]

Wow. Claiming that a witness is somehow responsible for the crime shows a lack of sense, not to mention a lack of compassion. But I suppose maybe it's just a lack of understanding.

Witnesses are not perpetrators, they are, in a smaller sense also victims of the crime.

How can a person who doesn't know what to expect, stop the unexpected form happening in the span of a few seconds?

[Man]

How do we cleanse the world of these vulgar fiends?

[xoblog]

Wow, what an intense story. And what a compelling read. Interesting first comment, also. Obviously from someone without any experience in such events. The first rule of utility is self-survival, anyway, so that's a bunk argument.

Glad no one in your party was hurt.

[Jessica]

Yea how do we get rid of these bad things {people}!!

[irina slutsky]

there is no way to "get rid" of these "bad people" because she was someone who needed mental health assistance when she was arrested. because of the cuts in budgets and the "tough on crime" politicians, she only got arrested and jailed. she was released back into the world, and did what the voices in her head told her to do. is it a society's responsibility to take care of its sick or not?