Victim of Michigan airport attack speaks
FLINT, Mich. — A police officer who was stabbed at a Michigan airport in an alleged act of terrorism told jurors Friday that he fought the urge to lie down as he bled from the neck.
Lt. Jeff Neville said that he was attacked in June 2017 with a “Rambo knife,” comparing its large size to the knife used by Sylvester Stallone’s John Rambo character in the 1982 movie “First Blood.” He said he fell to his hands and knees at Flint’s Bishop Airport.
Amor Ftouhi, a Tunisian who was living in Montreal, is charged with terrorism and other crimes. He legally drove into the U.S. at Champlain, New York, and arrived in Flint five days later. The government said his plan was to stab Neville, get the cop’s gun and shoot others.
Airport police Chief Chris Miller said he jumped on Ftouhi and tried to handcuff him.
“He said, ‘Allahu Akbar. You have killed people in Afghanistan, and you have killed people in Iraq,”’ Miller testified. “That’s not something that you normally hear every day. It’s distinctive in my mind. We were fighting. There was a lot of blood.” Neville no longer works at the airport. “It’s something that you never forget because you can’t feel half of your face,” Neville said. “Even sleeping is different.” murder of a gay University of Pennsylvania student in a hate crime.
Samuel Woodward, a 21-year-old from Newport Beach, Calif., is charged in the January stabbing death of 19-year-old college sophomore Blaze Bernstein, who was home visiting his family on winter break.
Bernstein, who was gay and Jewish, went missing after he went out with Woodward to a park in Lake Forest, Calif. His body was found days later buried at the park in a shallow grave.
According to authorities, Woodward picked up Bernstein from his parents’ home and stabbed him nearly 20 times in the face and neck. DNA evidence links Woodward to the crime and his cellphone contained troves of anti-gay, anti-Semitic and hate group materials, prosecutors have said.
If convicted of first-degree murder and the hate crime allegation, he faces a maximum sentence of life in prison without parole.