What to Know
- An employee of gas station where a customer was stabbed said it was a completely unprovoked attack.
- He said the man then went across the street and stabbed another person at the park there.
- Police said the two victims have non-life-threatening wounds. One person is in custody.
Two men were stabbed Tuesday morning in Washington's Capitol Hill neighborhood, and D.C. police are investigating whether the attacker is responsible for stabbing another person earlier in the day.
The first stabbing occurred before 3 a.m. at Pennsylvania Avenue and 6th Street SE, police said.
Then, just after 10 a.m., witnesses said a man who was talking to himself pulled out a knife at Pennsylvania Avenue and 4th Street SE.
The attacker, identified by police as Jerome Swinson, 39, of southeast Washington, approached an elderly man who was sitting in a chair at an Exxon station, waiting for his car to be repaired, Richard Hunt said.
"He was sitting when the guy pulled a knife. He got up and tried to get away, but he couldn't get away from him," Hunt said. "He stabbed him in the neck while he was trying to run."
Employees of the gas station helped the victim and chased the attacker. One employee followed the attacker in his car while calling police. But as the suspect fled, he encountered another man and stabbed him, police said.
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Officers caught the suspect in a nearby park.
"He wasn't on our radar at this point," Metropolitan Police Department Cmdr. Morgan Kane said.
All three victims are expected to recover from the attacks, police said. The elderly man stabbed in the neck was rushed to a hospital with high priority because he lost a lot of blood, police said.
The incidents remain under investigation.
