Fight at Virginia Beach tavern leaves four with stab wounds
VIRGINIA BEACH — Four people were stabbed and injured early Wednesday at the Kelly’s Tavern Hilltop location, police said.
Officers were called to the restaurant on Laskin Road shortly before 1 a.m., where they found four people suffering from knife wounds, police said in a news release.
Three victims were taken to a hospital for treatment, but their conditions were not known as of Wednesday afternoon. One man, 31-yearold Paul Augustine Power of Virginia Beach, was taken into custody at the scene, police said.
Power was charged with three counts of aggravated malicious wounding. He’s being held without bond at the city jail.
The incident began in the restaurant’s outdoor patio area when a man accused another customer of flicking cigarette ashes at his ex-girlfriend, leading to an altercation, said Boyd Melchor, owner of the restaurant.
Glasses had been broken and tables overturned by the
time security employees were able to break up the fight and kick out the man who made the accusation, Melchor said. The customers who’d been on the patio then headed inside.
A short time later, the man who’d been kicked out came back inside the bar with a knife. He attacked the man he’d been fighting, Melchor said. The man who was attacked and some of his friends wrestled the armed man to the floor and were lying on him when he began stabbing them, Melchor said.
Security employees broke the fight up again, took the knife away from the armed man and held him until police arrived, he said.
Melchor said one of the men reportedly was stabbed in the chest multiple times, and another suffered a serious wound to his arm that will require at least one surgery. Melchor didn’t know details about the injuries suffered by the other two people.
The man accused of flicking ashes at the armed man told restaurant employees he’s not even a smoker, Melchor said.