Stabbing victim in critical condition, 70-year-old charged

UPDATE: Thomas Baxter, a 70-year-old resident of San Francisco, has been booked at San Francisco County Jail on multiple charges in a Sunday night stabbing incident that left the victim with life-threatening injuries, according to the San Francisco Police Department. 

The charges against Baxter include attempted homicide, two counts of unlawful use of pepper spray, battery on a peace officer, and resisting arrest. 

Earlier reports said that one man had been pepper-sprayed, but police reported that a woman had also been pepper-sprayed. “During the detention,” the SFPD wrote, “the suspect resisted arrest and kicked one of the officers.” 

Baxter, born in Massachusetts, appears to have lived near the incident on 16th Street.

Correction: In an earlier email, the SFPD wrote that a suspect was still at large. They have corrected that. An investigation is under way, but there is no suspect at large, they said. “Anyone with information is asked to contact the SFPD at 415-575-4444 or text a tip to TIP411 and begin the message with SFPD.”

Sunday, 8:43 p.m.

Sometime after 6 p.m. on Sunday, a neighborhood resident stood drinking and chatting with his friends on the south side of 16th Street near Albion Street when another man, armed with two knives, stabbed him just above the chest. That’s according to Mike, who works at the Delirium Bar. 

“I think it was a psycho rampage,” Mike said. “I went over and talked to him [the victim] when he was laying on the ground, and he said, ‘yeah, yeah, I’m okay.’”  

The witness said the knife went in right above the victim’s heart. He said the victim, who he identified as Bruno, did not know the attacker, and that he also had not seen him in the neighborhood. 

“I saw my friend on his knees, with a massive piece of his chest cut,” said Mike. “Luckily, it did not go into his heart.” 

The attacker pepper-sprayed the victim’s companion and then walked into the middle of 16th Street, a knife in each hand, witnesses said. In the photograph of the man on the street, a knife can be seen clearly in one hand, but it is difficult to see what is in his left hand.

Police arrived and surrounded the attacker, a casually dressed man who appeared to be in his late 50s, and told him to put his knives down.  

“He went down on his own,” said one woman who watched the melee. 

The officers arrested him quickly, witnesses said.

The stabbing appeared to take place somewhere between Randa’s Market and Delirium. The sidewalk between the market and the corner of Albion and 16th streets, where Delirium’s entrance is, was splattered with blood. Delirium’s front entrance was taped off.

The cashier at Randa’s Market declined to be interviewed, and ordered the reporter out of his store. Officers on the scene were investigating the incident.

Update:

In jailhouse interview, stabbing suspect claims self-defense

Thomas Baxter, the 70-year-old charged with attempted murder in a stabbing on Sunday night, said today from the San Francisco County Jail that it was unbelievable that he was arrested for  “defending [himself] against the scum of the earth.”   On Sunday evening, Baxter stabbed one man, leaving him with life-threatening injuries, and pepper-sprayed two other people…

by David Mamaril Horowitz September 27, 2022September 29, 2022