Police Investigate Mystery Stabbing
Friday, September 7, 2012 • 9:27am
PATERSON, NJ - How do you investigate a stabbing when the victim says he wasn't stabbed? That's the challenge confronting Paterson police detectives.
The strange tale unfolded at about 10:15 pm Thursday night on River Street in the 1st Ward. Some men were hanging around on the 200 block of River Street when a taxi cab pulled up and one of their friends got out, police said. He was drunk, according to police, and leaned against a parked vehicle.
All of a sudden, one of the other men noticed blood on the vehicle, said Lt. Richard Reyes. They quickly determined that it was coming from a wound in the inebriated man's lower back, Reyes said. The men called for an ambulance and police.
Officers examined the man's back and determined it looked very much like a knife wound, said Reyes. But the man says he wasn't stabbed. The man says he fell and hurt himself, according to Reyes.
Was he too drunk to know he was stabbed? Was he covering up for someone? "We don't know," Reyes said.
In the meantime, detectives are trying to track down the cab driver who had dropped the victim off at River Street, Reyes said.
Authorities are asking anyone with information on the case contact the detective bureau at 973-321-1120
