By DON THOMPSON and JULIE WATSON
Airman 1st Class Spencer Stone, who helped stop a terror attack on a French train over the summer, was stabbed and seriously wounded Thursday in a fight outside a bar — the latest tragedy to befall him and his buddies since they returned home as heroes.
Violence overseas made Stone, National Guardsman Alex Skarlatos and college student Anthony Sadler sudden celebrities in August. In the past week, bloodshed at home thrust them back into the spotlight and shook them personally, first in Oregon, now in Sacramento.
The stabbing happened days after a deadly shooting rampage at the Oregon community college Skarlatos attends.
Stone, 23, was stabbed repeatedly in the upper body outside a nightclub in a hip neighborhood in his hometown of Sacramento in what police described as an alcohol-related fight that had nothing to do with terrorism.
He was listed in stable condition at UC Davis Medical Center, and officials said he was expected to pull through.
Police searched for the two assailants, who fled in a car, and said there is no evidence they knew who he was.
“This incident is not related to terrorism in any way,” Deputy Police Chief Ken Bernard said. “We know it’s not related to what occurred in France months ago.”
Bernard said the fight was “related to a nightclub incident” involving Stone’s circle and a second group, but he would not say what sparked the argument.
Police said they do not know whether the Travis Air Force Base airman was drinking, but others in his group were. In a statement, the hospital said Stone’s family “appreciates the outpouring of love and support” and requests privacy.
Skarlatos tweeted Thursday: “Everybody send prayers out to the Stone family today.”
Over the summer, Stone and his friends were vacationing in Europe when they sprang into action aboard a Paris-board train and brought down Ayoub El-Khazzani, a man with ties to radical Islam. He was armed with a Kalashnikov rifle, a pistol and a box cutter.
Stone suffered a severed tendon in his hand and needed 20 staples and eight stitches to close a knife wound to his neck from the struggle with the gunman.
President Barack Obama met with the three Americans last month, praising them for their quick thinking and courage and calling them “the very best of America.” They were also awarded France’s highest honor by President Francois Hollande. The three appeared on late-night talk shows and received a hometown parade.
Skarlatos, whose heroics led to an invitation from ABC’s dance contest, was rehearsing in Los Angeles instead of attending Umpqua Community College when a gunman killed nine people there Oct. 1. After getting a text and seeing the news, he hid in a bathroom to escape the cameras. Soon after, he headed to Roseburg, Oregon.
“It’s honestly the strangest emotion I ever felt,” Skarlatos said in a taped segment that aired on the show Monday. “Even the train made more sense than this does. … There’s nothing you can do.”
After the Oregon attack, Obama expressed frustration over gun violence in the U.S., pointing out that there are relatively few terrorism deaths in comparison with domestic killings.
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