News (USA)

A woman was also injured in the Spencer Stone attack

A woman was also injured in the Spencer Stone attack
This frame from video provided by A&P Liquors, shows a group of people, including U.S. airman Spencer Stone, fighting outside a bar in Sacramento, Calif., in the early hours of Thursday, Oct. 8, 2015. Stone, who helped stop a terror attack on a French train in August, was stabbed and wounded, but is expected to survive.
This frame from video provided by A&P Liquors, shows a group of people, including U.S. airman Spencer Stone, fighting outside a bar in Sacramento, Calif., in the early hours of Thursday, Oct. 8, 2015. Stone, who helped stop a terror attack on a French train in August, was stabbed and wounded, but is expected to survive. (A&P Liquors via AP)

SACRAMENTO, Calif. — A woman who was with a U.S. airman hailed as a hero for helping thwart a European terror attack was also hurt in the late-night fight that left the airman with three stab wounds, Sacramento police said Friday.

Airman 1st Class Spencer Stone’s condition was upgraded Friday from serious to fair. UC Davis Medical Center officials said the 23-year-old Stone “is awake, able to get out of bed and in good spirits.”

Fair condition means his vital signs are stable and normal, he is conscious but may be uncomfortable, and that he is recovering.

Police interviewed the 24-year-old woman who was with Stone and three others when they became involved in a brawl with another group in a Sacramento nightclub district, Sacramento Police Sgt. Doug Morse said. She was treated at a hospital and released.

“We don’t know the extent of her involvement. It was just that she was in the area and got bumped and got some abrasions,” Morse said.

Police said Stone had gone out with three women and another man before the fight early Thursday. A grainy surveillance video from outside a liquor store shows a large man who appears to be Stone fighting against a half-dozen people at an intersection, and Morse said the woman who was injured also appears to be in the video.

He said police are sorting through conflicting accounts of what happened and there have been no arrests. A second video released by police appears to show a woman and two men fleeing in a vehicle after the altercation, Morse said.

“We’re really hoping that additional witnesses or anyone involved comes forward,” he said. “Right now detectives are working around the clock to clarify all that stuff. It would be way too premature to discuss what witnesses saw.”

Business owners in the area announced a community fundraising drive to raise up to $7,000 for a reward to help with the investigation.

Police, meanwhile, collected surveillance video from The Depot, Badlands and Sidetrax bars down the block from the fight to see if Stone’s group or the other combatants were there before the fight, owner T.J. Bruce said. He said staff who were working at the bar that night did not see an altercation inside or outside ljkjhe three clubs, which are connected to each other. Surveillance video shows the fight took place about a block east of those clubs.

“There was nothing that was evident, like something that a barman or a doorman would have picked up. There was no confrontation in the bar that night,” Bruce said. “We have security that’s posted in front of our doors all night. There was nothing.”

He said police have not told him if their review of the clubs’ surveillance video showed any of the people involved in the fight.

The clubs generally cater to a gay and lesbian crowd, but draw more heterosexuals on Wednesday nights for drink and music specials, he said. His clubs are among several in the same neighborhood down the street from where the altercation was videotaped.

Stone, who is assigned to Travis Air Force Base in California, suffered a severely cut thumb and a knife wound to his neck in August when he and two childhood friends from Sacramento stopped a terror attack aboard a Paris-bound passenger train.

Stone, National Guardsman Alek Skarlatos and college student Anthony Sadler were vacationing in Europe when they tackled Ayoub El-Khazzani, a man with ties to radical Islam who had boarded the train with a Kalashnikov rifle, pistol and box cutter.

Sacramento Deputy Police Chief Ken Bernard said there is no connection between the Sacramento fight and what occurred in France. He would not say what started the argument but said there was no evidence the assailants knew who Stone was.

UC Davis Medical Center officials said his family appreciates the outpouring of support but is still requesting privacy.

© 2015, Associated Press, All Rights Reserved.
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