Man stabbed dead outside Galleria

A man was stabbed to death Thursday night on the sidewalk outside Nieman Marcus at the Galleria.

The man, who has not been identified, was attacked shortly before 9 p.m. along the 2600 block of Post Oak near Westheimer. He was pronounced dead at a hospital, police said.

The accused assailant was taken into custody.

Albert Franco was shopping with his fiancée when he spotted the victim, who appeared to be in his 50s or 60s, struggling with a younger man.

“I told him to stop, but he wouldn’t stop,” Franco said after HPD homicide detectives questioned him.

Franco rushed over to help when the older man said he was being robbed. “He said, ‘He’s trying to take my bag,’ ” Franco said.

Franco pushed the suspected assailant away from the older man but held onto him. Then, the victim told Franco that he had been stabbed.

Franco saw the blood on his shirt.

“I said, ‘Sir, you need to sit down,’ ” Franco said.

Franco said his fiancée is a nurse, and she began tending to the man. She was checking his pulse and talking to him.

“Then we saw that he was bleeding from his mouth,” Franco said.

The suspected assailant tried to break free.

“I held him down and said, ‘You aren’t going anywhere,’ ” Franco said.

Police and firefighters arrived and took charge of the scene.

The suspected assailant was in the back seat of a Houston police patrol car as homicide detectives continued their investigation.

Franco said the victim was wearing what looked like a khaki work uniform.