31yr old Ben Schwartz is seriously injured after suffering 9 stab
wounds from a catcaller who was harassing his girlfriend.
SF Gate reports:
Ben Schwartz, 31, was seriously injured Saturday morning while walking
home from a gathering with his girlfriend and another friend,
authorities said. Near the intersection of Larkin and Ellis streets at
about 4:45 a.m., Schwartz asked a man who had been catcalling his
girlfriend to stop.
Daniela Saavedra, a friend, said that the group had passed the man
twice before and that he had catcalled Schwartz's girlfriend each
time.
"All he said was, 'Can you please just stop?'" Saavedra said. "The man
then sort of trailed behind them, and that's when he attacked."
The man stabbed Schwartz nine times in the back, face, neck and arms,
puncturing a lung, Saavedra said. She said gashes on his arms required
about 60 stitches each, while the cuts to his back just missed his
spinal cord.
The suspect hopped into a nearby silver sedan and got away. Police are
still searching for him.
Saavedra said Schwartz is always looking out for people. In February,
as reported in The Chronicle, he went out of his way to buy a bicycle
on the street that he thought was stolen, then searched for its
rightful owner. The owner, a freelance photographer for The Chronicle,
had been desperately searching for it when Schwartz contacted him.
"I've had friends get their cars broken into, smashed-in windows,
stolen laptops, stolen cell phone — there's nothing I can do a lot of
those times," Schwartz said in February. "But this way, it was easy.
It was safe, and it got him his bike back. … I just wanted to do
somebody a solid for once."
"He definitely sticks up for women, for anyone really," Saavedra said.
"If you're his friend, you're his friend for life, and I've watched
him just support many friends through many hard times. He's just so
kindhearted, and you can see that in everything that he does."
Schwartz, who lives in the Tenderloin, is an advertising student at
the Art Institute of California and a server at Crustacean on Nob
Hill. He has been released from the hospital, Saavedra said, but is
still recovering and in a lot of pain.
"It's really hard to see how hard he's worked to be in school and to
have it all crash down suddenly," she said. "He was so close to
finishing school. He was doing amazing. I'm not sure when he knows
he'll get back to school or work right now."
Schwartz's friends have set up a GoFundMe page in a bid to support him.
Thank God he's alive. He has a good heart.
That suspect needs to be found.
