A Boston Police Department, or BPD, incident report revealed new details about the April 1 stabbing near Northeastern’s East Village Residence Hall that left one individual with non-life-threatening injuries.
The incident began as a verbal argument between the victim and suspect, both male, inside Symphony Market on 291 Huntington Ave., according to the April 1 report obtained by The Huntington News. Once the two men exited the store, the altercation allegedly turned physical.
The suspect reportedly brandished a knife and slashed the victim on his neck and left forearm. Witnesses reported that after the fight, both men fled across the street to the YMCA of Greater Boston at 316 Huntington Ave., according to the BPD report.
The victim went to the bathroom at the YMCA to treat his wounds and, upon finding the door locked, made his way to Hastings Hall, which is located at 291 St. Botolph St., near East Village, where he was located by Northeastern University Police Department, or NUPD, officers at 8:19 a.m., the report stated.
Using footage from security cameras on the Boston campus provided by NUPD, Boston police officers responded to an apartment building, where they showed building staff a photograph of the potential subject. Officers located an individual and conducted a Field Interrogation and Observation before releasing them. A suspect was arrested later in the evening.
The report did not disclose the address of the apartment building in question, or whether it was on Northeastern’s campus. Northeastern police sent out an NU Alert, an email sent through the university’s emergency notification system, at 9:04 a.m. Wednesday, reporting police activity at East Village, and sent a follow up NU Alert at 10:15 a.m. and Timely Warning notification at 11:06 a.m., both notifying the community that police cleared the scene.
Northeastern police and Boston EMS assisted BPD throughout the incident and Beth Israel Deaconess Medical Center treated the victim for “severe” lacerations. It is unclear if there was any relationship between the victim and the suspect. The suspect was not identified in the report but an April 1 BPD report said a 58-year-old Stephen Dantzler was arrested and is expected to be arraigned on a charge of assault and battery with a dangerous weapon in Boston Municipal Court, as previously reported by The News.
The report listed one victim, one suspect, one witness and the involvement of one “other” person throughout the incident. The offense was classified as an aggravated assault, which can carry a sentence of up to 15 years in prison, according to the Law Offices of Lefteris K. Travayiakis website.
