SAN ANTONIO — A fight between men ended with one stabbed in the neck, according to officials.
San Antonio police say a man trying to take a cell phone attacked another man with an iron rod at the Walgreens on East Houston Street around 10:15 p.m. Monday. The man with the cell phone then pulled a knife to defend himself, stabbing the suspect.
The suspect, a man in his 30s, was taken to University Hospital in stable condition.
Centro San Antonio Board Chair Trish DeBerry isn't surprised, calling the corner of Navarro and East Houston a continued problem.
"I would tell you that I believe that downtown is a very, very safe place," she said. "We do have hotspots, and one of those hotspots is right here at the corner by Walgreens. Some of it is problematic as a result of the bench that we have out here because many of our unsheltered population wants to be able to congregate here and engage in nefarious activity that tourists and residents we have downtown don't like."
DeBerry, along with the Travis Park Coalition for Homeless, has been working to get the bench removed.
"We have advocated at Centro for a bench removal right here on the corner, because we do think it would help with the nefarious activity that we see on this corner on a daily basis," DeBerry said.
At the end of May, a woman was killed by a stray bullet downtown. An arrest still hasn't been made.
The San Antonio Police Department (SAPD) called both events "isolated incidents."
"The San Antonio Police Department takes downtown safety seriously. Most calls for service in the downtown area are not violent," the agency said in a statement, referencing how the opening of the downtown substation on St. Mary's Street allows officers to have "a faster and more focused response to downtown crime."
DeBerry believes taking away the bench and bringing more people to downtown San Antonio would help make it feel safer.
"Activities, whether it's Stars and Stripes on Houston Street, whether it's Hemisphere and the catalytic projects that we have going on in downtown, all of that means that we have density of people. And that creates activity, which is important because some of the unsheltered population has a tendency to gather where there's no activity," she said.
For Joanne Cerda, who has lived downtown for the past three years, tourists do make a difference.
"At night, when there’s a lot of tourists here, it’s not so bad because there’s more people," she said. "But on Sundays and Monday nights when it’s quiet, I don’t go out at night."
SAPD said the man will be facing charges once he's released.
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