SAN ANTONIO – A standoff between a suspect and San Antonio police began because the suspect assaulted a woman at an East Side apartment complex on Monday.
“If it weren’t for the neighbors and my family that came outside to help me, I would not be living because he intended to stab me with his knife,” said the woman, who asked to remain anonymous, in an interview with KSAT.
The hourslong standoff on the East Side began early Monday morning after an armed man got into three different disputes outside his apartment.
The first incident began when police responded to a call from landscaping employees who said a man threatened them with a knife in the 4600 block of Dietrich Road.
When officers arrived, they searched the area, including an apartment the man may have lived in. After trying to communicate with him for a half-hour, police disengaged, left and put out an arrest warrant for an aggravated assault with a deadly weapon charge.
Hours later, the San Antonio Police Department again responded to the same complex. This time, the suspect allegedly spat on a woman, grabbed her hair and then chased her with a knife, police said.
“He spits at me, so I jumped back, and that’s when he pulled out the knife,” the woman said.
The victim told KSAT as she was trying to run to her apartment, she was yelling for help.
“He pushed me in the back, and I fell on my knees, but I quickly got up and kept running, and he pushed me down again,” said the victim.
The woman said the moment she thought she was going to die when she fell for a second time. That’s when she noticed 10 to 15 of her neighbors had come out, were yelling and running toward the suspect.
“They were able to hit him with sticks and throw rocks at him, but it’s like he didn’t react to being hit,” the victim said. “When he saw that there were a lot of guys coming to attack him, he pulled out a gun.”
SAPD said that bystanders “came to the rescue.” The suspect then responded by firing a gun in the air, prompting the residents to run away, police said. He then ran inside an apartment unit and refused to come out, police said.
Eventually, an SAPD SWAT team entered the apartment unit and managed to arrest the man.
The unidentified man, who is in his late 20s, faces three counts of aggravated assault with a deadly weapon, police said.
The woman KSAT spoke to said that she was OK. She has minor scrapes from falling to the ground, but her mental health is a different story.
“I’m scared. I don’t sleep well. I close my eyes, and I see his face and him there with the knife,” the victim said. “That image. I can’t get it out of my head.”
She told KSAT that even though the suspect has been arrested, it is still hard for her to come outside.
“I’m very grateful to all the neighbors who were able to help me because not everyone would have done that, and I’m thankful no one else was seriously hurt,” the victim said.
