Two cyclists stabbed after holiday ride; one in critical condition
A driver confronted a group after one yelled at him.
Map View
An annual Memorial Day bicycle ride landed three men in the hospital — two cyclists who were stabbed and the suspect who’ll be charged in the attack.
One of the cyclists was in critical condition Monday at Shands Jacksonville, said Sgt. Robert Hurst of the Jacksonville Sheriff’s Office. Police did not identify any of the three men Monday.
Hurst said police have varying accounts of what happened just before 11 a.m. in the parking lot of Florida State College at Jacksonville’s Kent Campus.
Jim Wright of Orange Park was among about 25 riders in the front group and said everything started when the cyclists finished their 60-mile route and pulled onto the service road leading into the college — the starting and finishing point for the ride.
A man driving a pickup truck brushed up against one of the cyclists and another rider started yelling at the driver, Wright said.
The driver followed the group into the parking lot, got out of his truck and moved toward one of the cyclists, Wright said.
When the driver, whom Hurst said was in his late teens or early 20s, bumped his chest against the cyclist, another rider punched the driver in the face.
The driver then stabbed the cyclist who punched, and slashed another rider who tried to break it up, Wright said.
None of the witnesses who spoke with the Times-Union saw the knife and Hurst said it was not recovered.
The man then got in his truck and took off. Robert Brown, another cyclist, chased after the truck and yelled the license plate number to someone else in the group, who saved it in his phone and called police.
Wright grabbed a spare tube for a bike tire and wrapped it around the first cyclist’s wounds to try to stop the bleeding until rescue units arrived.
“You can fix anything with a tube and a spoke,” Wright said.
The driver called his father, who went to the scene and told police where to find his son, Hurst said. He was hospitalized with injuries to his face and will be charged with aggravated battery, Hurst said.
The driver is cooperating with police and told his father he was jumped by a group of cyclists, Hurst said.
The two cyclists were among more than 100 riders in an annual Memorial Day ride sponsored by the North Florida Bicycle Club, ride director John McDowell said.
Most of the cyclists who gathered after the ride have their own horror stories about being flipped the bird or getting ice tossed on them by motorists, but that’s usually as far as it goes, McDowell said.
“We’ve had threats like that before,” McDowell said, “but never anything like this.”
No comments:
Post a Comment