A stabbing incident at a Fort Worth gas station left one person injured after he attempted to intervene when a store clerk and another man had a dispute last week, according to NBC DFW.
Bryce Baker, a frequent customer of the Chevron station near Interstate 35 and Berry Street, stopped at the gas station with his family around 5:30 p.m. on May 30.
While waiting in line, shouting erupted between the store clerk and another customer ahead of Baker. The female clerk had asked the man to leave the store after he had apparently harassed other customers, according to the Fort Worth Police Department.
“I sat there for a good probably, you know, two, three, four minutes, you know, four or five minutes, of them just screaming back and forth,” said Baker.
During the shouting match, Baker witnessed the suspect retrieve an item from his pocket, which is when he jumped in to protect the clerk.
“Whenever I’ve seen his hand go up like that, I just went up behind him, and I put [him] into a headlock and tried to back him up towards the door,” said Baker.
“I ended up kicking the door open with my foot, and I went to go sling him out. And then that’s whenever he said, ‘That’s how we’re gonna play?’ And then, his hand went like that, and it stabbed me,” he added.
The scuffle was witnessed by Baker’s wife, Trinity, and the couple’s two young children, a 1-year-old and a 3-year-old, who were watching from their car.
After the stabbing, Baker underwent a five-hour surgery and a four-day hospital stay for a punctured colon. Baker is expected to be out of work for six to eight weeks.
Authorities did not release any information about injuries the alleged assailant sustained, though he also left the gas station in an ambulance. The suspect, James Gilmore, was charged with two counts of aggravated assault.
Donations can be given to a GoFundMe created by Baker’s family to assist him in his recovery.
Baker said that stepping in to assist was something he felt compelled to do.
