© 2024 Blaze Media LLC. All rights reserved.
Liquor Store Worker Said a Man Punched a Woman Outside a Sacramento Bar and That's When a U.S. Airman Already Credited With Thwarting a Terrorist Got Involved
This frame from video provided by A&P Liquors, shows a group of people, including U.S. airman Spencer Stone, fighting outside a bar in Sacramento, Calif., in the early hours of Thursday, Oct. 8, 2015. Stone, who helped stop a terror attack on a French train in August, was stabbed and wounded, but is expected to survive. (A&P Liquors via AP)

Liquor Store Worker Said a Man Punched a Woman Outside a Sacramento Bar and That's When a U.S. Airman Already Credited With Thwarting a Terrorist Got Involved

"There was a big red mark on the back of his shirt."

Spencer Stone, the U.S. Airman 1st Class credited with helping thwart a terrorist aboard a French train in August, was apparently defending a woman this week when he was stabbed, according to a witness.

Eric Cain, who worked the late shift at A&P Liquors, a store that appears to have captured surveillance footage of the incident that took place after midnight in Sacramento Thursday, told KVOR-TV he heard an argument.

A different angle from a camera outside the store showed Cain standing on a corner with another man, watching as the fight unfolded.

This frame from video provided by A&P Liquors, shows a group of people, including U.S. airman Spencer Stone, fighting outside a bar in Sacramento, Calif., in the early hours of Thursday, Oct. 8, 2015. Stone, who helped stop a terror attack on a French train in August, was stabbed and wounded, but is expected to survive. (A&P Liquors via AP)

“Right now we’re sitting there going, ‘I don’t think they’re gonna fight; they don’t want to fight,’” Cain said, watching he video and recalling his thoughts to KVOR.

Cain said a woman appeared to be fighting with her boyfriend.

“She’s hitting him with a plastic bag,” he said, pointing toward a screen with the surveillance video running.

Cain told the news station he didn't think a fight was going to break out among the group and started walking back toward the store, "and that’s when I heard a [punch sound] and I turned back around."

This frame from video provided by A&P Liquors, shows a group of people, including U.S. airman Spencer Stone, fighting outside a bar in Sacramento, Calif., in the early hours of Thursday, Oct. 8, 2015. Stone, who helped stop a terror attack on a French train in August, was stabbed and wounded, but is expected to survive. (A&P Liquors via AP)

That punch, Cain said, was a man hitting the woman and that's when he thinks Stone apparently got involved.

Cain told KVOR Stone didn't appear as hurt as he really was initially.

"He was walking with his arms up, you know how you are after you get in a fight,” he told the news station. “I saw the back of his shirt — there was a big red mark on the back of his shirt and another guy walked by and I just kinda went, ‘I think the dude got stabbed.’”

Watch KVOR's report:

Stone was knifed three times in the upper body and underwent about two hours of surgery, said Dr. J. Douglas Kirk, chief medical officer at UC Davis Medical Center. He said Thursday Stone remained heavily sedated in the hospital's intensive care unit. He declined to discuss any details about the surgery or whether any vital organs were damaged in the stabbing, beyond saying Stone had "significant injuries."

The suspects in the attack, described by the police as two males who fled in a Toyota Camry, remain at large and the investigation is ongoing. Cain told KVOR he was surprised when the woman, the same one he thinks he saw Stone defending, got in the car with the suspects.

According to the Sacramento Police Department, the 24-year-old woman was treated for minor injuries at the hospital. She has been interviewed by detectives.

The police department has not released details on what led up to the altercation, but said there was no evidence the assailants knew who Stone was.

"This incident is not related to terrorism in any way," Deputy Police Chief Ken Bernard said. "We know it's not related to what occurred in France months ago."

French President Francois Hollande bids farewell to U.S. Airman Spencer Stone as U.S. National Guardsman Alek Skarlatos of Roseburg, Ore., second from left, and Anthony Sadler, a senior at Sacramento State University in California, right, look on at the Elysee Palace in Paris, France, after Hollande awarded them with the French Legion of Honor on Monday, Aug. 24, 2015. The three American travelers say they relied on gut instinct and a close bond forged over years of friendship as they took down a heavily armed man on a passenger train speeding through Belgium on Friday, Aug. 21. (AP/Michel Euler)

In August, Stone and two of his childhood friends from Sacramento, National Guardsman Alek Skarlatos and college student Anthony Sadler, were vacationing in Europe when they sprang into action aboard a Paris-bound passenger train and tackled Ayoub El-Khazzani, a man with ties to radical Islam. He had boarded the train with a Kalashnikov rifle, a pistol and a box cutter.

Stone, who is assigned to Travis Air Force Base in California, suffered a severely cut thumb and a knife wound to his neck during the struggle with the gunman.

The Associated Press contributed to this report.

Want to leave a tip?

We answer to you. Help keep our content free of advertisers and big tech censorship by leaving a tip today.
Want to join the conversation?
Already a subscriber?