U.S. hero of French train attack stabbed in Sacramento
Airman wounded following altercation at a bar in Sacramento
Spencer Stone, one of the American heroes who thwarted a terrorist attack on a French train in August, was stabbed multiple times early Thursday in downtown Sacramento after an altercation in a bar, police said.
Stone, 23, an airman, received several significant — but non-life-threatening — stab wounds to his upper torso, Sacra- mento Deputy Police Chief Ken Bernard said. He was listed in stable condition.
Bernard emphasized that the attack “was not a terrorist-related incident, nor is it related to what happened in France a fewmonths ago.”
The police official said the stabbing occurred around 12:46 a.m. PT after a verbal dispute in a nearby bar that continued down the sidewalk. He said there is no reason to believe Stone “is in any kind of trouble.”
He said Stone was with a male friend and three females. The suspects, who fled in a car, were described as two Asian males.
In the train incident in August, Stone, longtime friends Alek Skarlatos, 22, an Oregon National Guardsman, and Anthony Sadler, 23, a student at Sacramento State University, became national heroes overnight after tackling and subduing a gunman on a high-speed train from Amsterdam to Paris.
“Everybody send prayers out to the Stone family today,” Skarlatos tweeted Thursday.
The alleged train gunman, Ayoub El-Khazzani, was armed with a Kalashnikov, an automatic Luger pistol and a box cutter.
Stone, from Carmichael, Calif., was hospitalized after the train incident with stab wounds to his neck and thumb, which had to be reattached.
El-Khazzani, 25, was taken into custody when the train reached France. French authorities identified him as a Moroccan with ties to radical Islam who may have traveled to Syria.
“We just kind of acted; there wasn’t much thinking going on,” Stone said at a news conference in Paris days after the attack. He said he acted out of “survival — and formy friends and everybody else on the train.”
Stone was given a Purple Heart and Airman’s Medal in a Pentagon ceremony, Skarlatos claimed the Soldier’s Medal, and Sadler was issued a civilian award.