Woonsocket man charged after alleged knife fight

2 injured during late-night incident on Fairmount St.

WOONSOCKET — A 38year-old man was charged with felony assault Friday after he allegedly tried stab another man in the abdomen with a folding razor-knife during a bizarre incident at a Fairmount apartment house.

Michael James Lalumiere of 26 Fairmount St. was also hospitalized with a head wound he suffered when the other individual defended himself with a pipe, police said.

Police said the victim, 22 years old, was at 26 Fairmount St. about 1:36 a.m. to check on an ailing cousin who wasn’t answering the phone. Worried that she might need her inhaler, he went over to check in on her. He said he was walking her outside to get some air when he ran into Lalumiere in a common hallway.

For no apparent reason, he said, Lalumiere began yelling at him. When three of his friends walked into the hallway from his cousin’s apartment, Lalumiere seemed “infuriated” and pulled out a white-handled folding knife “like an old time razor a barber would use,” the man told police.

Lalumiere allegedly threw a chair at him, then lunged toward him and his friends –

all 18-year-olds – with the blade. Lalumiere charged him and thrust the knife into his abdomen, but for some reason he suffered no laceration.

The victim of the alleged knife attack told police he grabbed the nearest thing he could find to use as a defensive weapon, which turned out to be a length of pipe. He struck Lalumiere on the head with it, dropped it and ran outside. Lalumiere, still brandishing the blade, chased after him. The victim told police he escaped by climbing back into the apartment house through a window.

“He said he was so scared that he then ran into the bedroom and hid in the corner behind the bed,” police said in a report.

When police arrived, they encountered Lalumiere in a hallway with a woman who was holding a towel to his bloody head. Police said he and the woman were “extremely excited and screaming” about an assailant who got away.

Although the victim of the attempted stabbing suffered no laceration, police observed visible welts on his abdomen where Lalumiere allegedly pressed the blade against his skin.

Police said Lalumiere was transported to Rhode Island Hospital after paramedics from the Woonsocket Fire Department evaluated him. The extent of his injuries is unknown, but they are not believed to be life-threatening.

Police seized a folding knife and a black pipe during the investigation.

No charges were brought against the man who struck Lalumiere with the pipe.

In addition to aggravated assault with a dangerous weapon, police also charged Lalumiere with disorderly conduct.