A man has been arrested after stealing an ambulance while paramedics were tending to a victim in a fatal stabbing near a California high school, according to authorities.
On Saturday, police rushed to the public library in Downey, about a half-hour drive southeast of Los Angeles, after someone was stabbed right outside, the Downey Police Department wrote in a Facebook post.
“The gentlemen were arguing right outside here. One guy pulled out a knife…and started just stabbing the other gentleman,” Abraham Mancilla, a witness to the stabbing, told local ABC affiliate KABC. “The gentleman fell down, and once the gentleman fell down, he went for one more strike to the neck, and that’s where the blood…that happened.”
Local residents told KABC multiple people were charging their cars at electric vehicle charging stations outside of the library when the stabbings occurred.
Police said the stabbing victim died at the library, and witnesses told them the suspect fled on foot toward the local high school. The suspect, whom KABC identified as a 23-year-old homeless man, was taken into custody on the locked-down campus.
But the stabbing suspect wasn’t the only one police caught that day.
While paramedics were helping the stabbing victim, a man stole an ambulance parked at the library, police said.
“It ended up just kind of swerving, and it had about 12 cop cars behind it,” Mancilla said.
In a police chase that ended about 40 minutes north in Alhambra, the suspect, who was not connected to the stabbing, crashed the ambulance into a parked vehicle, police said.
Video shared by KABC showed the ambulance smashed into a parked truck on its side. The front of the ambulance appeared to have suffered sufficient damage.
Police said they arrested the man, whom KABC said was 52 years old. The local outlet reported, citing authorities, there were no injuries from the crash.
Local resident Alan Kwong told KABC the suspect was “screaming” when police arrested him.
“He’s still screaming in the car, in the police SUV, right now, even right now,” Kwong said.
