Airman who helped thwart train attack in France is wounded in brawl.
— Airman 1st Class Spencer Stone, celebrated as a hero for helping to stop a terror attack on a French train over the summer, was stabbed and seriously injured outside a bar in his hometown early Thursday in what police said was an alcohol-related brawl.
Stone, 23, was knifed repeatedly in the upper body but was expected to survive, authorities said. He was taken to UC Davis Medical Center.
“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.”
A grainy surveillance video from a camera outside a liquor store showed a man who appeared to be Stone fighting with several people at an intersection. The group spilled into the street as people took swings at each other, and one person was knocked down.
Police said two assailants fled in a car. No immediate arrests were made.
Bernard said Stone was out with four friends when they got into a fight with another group of people. Bernard would not say what sparked the argument, adding that there was no evidence the assailants knew who Stone was.
He said he did not know whether Stone was drinking, but others in his group were.
In a statement, the hospital said Stone’s family appreciated “the outpouring of love and support” it had received, but requested privacy.
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.