California college town rattled after ‘brutal and violent’ stabbings

Stabbings around UC Davis rattle California college town - The Washington Post

Residents of Davis, Calif., are on edge after three people were stabbed, two of them fatally, in the city in a matter of days, sparking a manhunt involving local police and federal investigators.

Police say they do not yet know whether the incidents are connected, but they share similarities. Witnesses provided a “substantially similar” description of the suspect in the second and third stabbings, Davis Police Chief Darren Pytel said in a news conference.

The unexplained spate of violence has unsettled the residents of Davis — a progressive college town about 70 miles northeast of San Francisco that is home to the University of California at Davis. Pytel said the first two stabbings were “particularly brutal and violent.” In the second and third incidents, the “suspect didn’t seem to care that there were several witnesses who could identify him,” he said.

“I’ve been with the department coming up on 40 years now,” Pytel said. “This is different.”

In the first incident, police said they received a call Thursday around 11:20 a.m. about an unresponsive person in Central Park in Davis. Emergency responders arrived to find a homeless man who was already dead and who appeared to have been stabbed multiple times in a “very violent attack,” Pytel said. The Yolo County coroner later identified the victim as David Henry Breaux, 50.

City officials said Breaux was a well-liked Stanford University graduate known in the community as “ Compassion Guy” for his habit of asking passersby what compassion meant to them. Police found him “slouched over” a park bench where he normally slept at night, Pytel said.

The second incident took place Saturday night around Sycamore Park, less than two miles west of Central Park. Around 9:14 p.m., a local resident heard a disturbance near the area of Sycamore Lane and Colby Drive. The resident went outside and found a man in his early 20s “with what appeared to be multiple stab wounds,” police said. The resident also reported having a “short interaction” with the suspect, who fled. The resident called 911, and emergency responders declared the victim dead at the scene. The county coroner later identified him as Karim Abou Najm, 20, a student at UC Davis and graduate of Davis High School.

Abou Najm, a computer science major at UC Davis, was about to graduate, according to his LinkedIn profile. He had recently begun interning at a software company called XRAI Glass. The company’s CEO, Dan Scarfe, wrote that Abou Najm“was a new member of the team but had already made an incredible impact. His friendly and open personality was infectious, backed with serious technical smarts and … razor sharp IQ.”

In both cases, police were unable to apprehend a suspect. Both victims were men and were stabbed violently and repeatedly with a knife, police said. But police could not identify a connection between the victims or determine whether the stabbings were connected. Still, the back-to-back killings sparked panic and confusion in Davis, and the Davis City Council warned residents to stay vigilant.

The death of a UC Davis student sparked particular concern at the university. Chancellor Gary S. May said in a news conference that “while these incidents have not occurred on our campus, the boundaries between the campus and the city are soft boundaries.”

“We’re all the same community at the end,” he added.

The third incident occurred Monday, police said. Around 11:46 p.m., Davis police received a first 911 call about a stabbing at a “known transient camp in the area of 2nd Street and L Street.” Police also received a call from the victim herself, Pytel said. Officers responded and took the victim to a hospital to be treated for stab wounds. The woman, whom police have not identified, underwent surgery and was in “critical but stable condition” on Tuesday, Pytel said.

The victim was able to give police a statement, Pytel said — including a description of the assailant, who he said apparently “stabbed her through the side wall” of her tent. Several witnesses reportedly saw the suspect flee the scene, he added.

The description of the suspect as a light-skinned male with curly hair between 5 feet 6 inches and 5 feet 9 inches tall generally aligned with the description given to police by the witness of the second stabbing. But the third victim had “far fewer” knife wounds than the first two victims, Pytel said.

Pytel said authorities were working overtime to find whoever was responsible and would expand the police presence in the city. Davis police are receiving assistance from federal investigators, including from the FBI and Justice Department.