A fight Tuesday night that began in Burlington’s City Hall Park ended with one man slashed, a second stabbed in the neck and a third man behind bars, according to police.
Conner Lucas, a 28-year-old homeless man with an extensive criminal record, pleaded not guilty Wednesday morning to a charge of aggravated assault with a weapon. He was ordered held without bail.
Police said the incident began with a dispute in the park. Lucas allegedly pulled an “edged weapon” and slashed the hand of a man who tried to break up the fight. The trio continued walking up Main Street until the scuffle escalated and Lucas used the weapon to cut a second man’s throat near the Church Street intersection, according to police.
Authorities responding to the scene just before 8:30 p.m. found the victim “bleeding profusely from a stab wound in the neck.” The unidentified victim was taken to the University of Vermont Medical Center for emergency surgery on a severed vein, police said. The man was reported to be in stable condition.
Police later arrested Lucas in Battery Park.
All three men knew each other and “frequent the park and the area of Church and Main” streets, police said.
At the time of the stabbing, Lucas was awaiting sentencing for domestic assault and violations of conditions of release, police said. He’d been arrested previously for aggravated assault, domestic assault, theft of services, unlawful restraint, disorderly conduct and disclosure of sexually explicit images without consent.
Tuesday night’s bloodshed culminated just three blocks south of Church and Cherry streets, where in March another homeless man, Louis Fortier, allegedly stabbed Richard Medina to death in broad daylight.
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I thought this was a pic of the victim!
All knives should have a serial number and owners should be registered. Police should have a file of all knives owned in the county. Knife Sense Vermont.
The derelicts are making downtown unsafe. That last stabbing wasn’t all that long ago.
Unsafe? Unless you are going around looking to get in medieval knife fights in city park I would not say the downtown area in unsafe. I don’t have numbers but I’m willing to bet that north of 95% of all of the stabbings that occur in the area aren’t random, some connection can be made between victim and culprit.
Unsafe? One thing I really want my 5-year-old daughter to see in person is a knife fight. Hopefully it spills into her while the combatants are flailing around. If all goes well, I’ll take my 2-year-old daughter to see one too.
Furthermore, one never knows what a derelict in the middle of some kind of manic episode is actually going to do to the people around him/her.
Meanwhile, the mayor was posing for pics with telecom bigwigs a block away. At least he’s got his priorities right, huh? Oh, wait, that was the *next* bloody fight at Church & Main, the *next* day. The businesses along the Main St. block from Church to S. Winooski is, in fact, dangerous for all people, not just other partied-until-they’re-homeless derelicts.
people at going knife crazy! Just last night there was that stabbing on lower Church St.
I’m in no way condoning the action, in fact its quite sad to see people in a state where they need to resolve issues with a knife fight. But to say that Burlington is unsafe is stretch. More can be done to prevent such actions from occurring, but to that person that is NOT caught up in situations where they need a knife for protection based on prior actions should feel incredibly safe/proud to walk around and call Burlington home.
All these incidents happen among the same crew of partied-until-they’re-homeless guys who refuse to follow the rules that would allow them into treatment and/or shelter. No one is safe on Church & Main, and our businesses suffer from the blocked sidewalks, gauntlet of drunken panhandlers, and their litter, puke, and cigarette butts on our stoops. I personally have witnessed several people accosted for not giving change, and I personally have been physically assaulted twice while trying to get out of my place of employment. We need a no panhandling law in Burlington.I support solutions for homelessness, but not endangering people or exposing tourists and children to this kind of degradation and political correctness gone wrong. The mayor watches it all from his window and does nothing.
Why was this guy not locked up and getting treatment. Why was he allowed on the streets? Where are the Howard Center Street People.
Better lighting and a cleaned up park, with lots of benches for people to sit on, and one with no sharp edges, one that is a calming place for people to enter, would really help.
A bad tempered lot these socialists. And, to think that we down here in the lower 47 thought Burlington was a “people’s” paradise!
Downtown Burlington is always crawling with scuzzbuckets like this guy. Between the hordes of people begging for my hard earned cash and the groups of Howard Center clients just milling about aimlessly, it’s really become a horrible place.
“At the time of the stabbing, Lucas was awaiting sentencing for domestic assault and violations of conditions of release, police said. Hed been arrested previously for aggravated assault, domestic assault, theft of services, unlawful restraint, disorderly conduct and disclosure of sexually explicit images without consent.”
So WTF was he doing on the street? Seriously… did he post bail? And if so, why was that even an option?