US airman who helped stop gunman on train in Europe stabbed in US

Spencer Stone, United States airman who helped foil a terror attack on a French train in August, was stabbed after a fight in Sacramento city, California on Wednesday night, police said.

The stabbing, which took place near 21st and K streets, was part of a “very unfortunate altercation between two groups of folks who were enjoying the nightlife” in Sacramento’s midtown area, Deputy Police Chief Ken Bernard told reporters.

The police also said that Stone was stabbed multiple times in the torso.

“He underwent surgery and is recovering in the hospital’s intensive care unit”, UC Davis Chief Medical Officer J Douglas Kirk told mediapersons on Thursday afternoon.

Bernard said that the attack was not connected to the train episode. “This incident is not related to terrorism in any way,” he said at a news conference.

Deborah Lee James, the secretary of the air force, wrote on Facebook that she was “saddened” by the attack.

“The circumstances for today’s incident are under investigation by the local law enforcement,” she wrote, “Meanwhile, please keep him and his family in your thoughts and prayers.”

The police have still not named any suspects, but they are in search of two men believed to have fled in a 2009-2012 dark Toyota Camry. They have released a blurry image of the two men, and have also posted the security camera footage of the suspects.

In the video released, three people run up to a car that stops on the street for them to jump in.

The stabbing comes less than two months after Stone, along with his friends Alek Skarlatos and Anthony Sadler, thwarted an attack aboard a high-speed train travelling from Amsterdam to Paris.

Stone was awakened by the sound of a gunshot in their railway carriage. He looked up and saw an assailant at the end of the car holding an AK-47. The friends ran down the length of the carriage and tackled the gunman. Stone locked him in a chokehold while Skarlatos snatched his gun away.

He and his two friends were quickly hailed as heroes and celebrated by US President Obama and French President Francois Hollande.

Image: Spencer Stone was stabbed after a fight in Sacramento city, California on Wednesday night. Photograph: Max Whittaker/Reuters