Stabbings of strangers may be gang initiation

Not a week goes by that we don’t receive a report of someone being shot or stabbed, with the victim having “absolutely no idea” who did the deed. Such testimony, of course, is usually a convenient lie to keep the police out of the private conflict. But the bulletin we received today–referring to unknown assailants–actually appears to be true.

Jacqueline Godwin, Reporting
Former professional boxer Carlton Bowers was stabbed in the back by a man individual police believes went on a rampage Saturday night. The attacks which sent two men to the Karl Heusner Memorial Hospital occurred after seven in the vicinity of King Street and Amara Avenue.

Carlton Bowers, Stabbing Victim
?I do not know if God had something to do with it, because I know injuries like these you usually in pain all the way round. But just a big stab wound and I do not have much pain. Only when I am sleeping on my back and I have pain or when I turn on my side.?

Forty-seven year old Bowers says he was on his bicycle returning from a Chinese shop when his attention was drawn to several young men walking towards him. Bowers says because he has no enemies he did not think much about it and continued on his way but Bowers says shortly after he passed the group he felt a sharp pain and then he fell off the bike.

Carlton Bowers
?I see about three or four guys coming. I recognized one with a beer in his hand, and then I passed them about three feet and then I feel a stabbing to my back. I then dropped straight on my knee and elbow with the bike in front of me. Then I looked back, and I said you do bad it will follow you.?

Bowers says he fell by a vehicle but when he asked the driver for help the person simply drove off leaving him to pedal all the way home where his family took him tot eh hospital.

Carlton Bowers
?Well the doctor said–he asked me first what I got stabbed with, but he said as far as he can see it was a big knife that I got stabbed with. That is what he told me.?

Jacqueline Godwin
Why does he believe it was a big knife?

Carlton Bowers
?He believes it was a big knife, because he could have put four fingers in the hole.?

As Bowers was being treated, another man forty year old Cecil Lewis was rushed into emergency. Lewis says he was at the corner of King Street and Amara Avenue when someone grabbed him from behind and stabbed him in the throat. Lewis says he had just dropped off his girlfriend and her child and got out of the vehicle when he was attacked.

Cecil Lewis, Stabbing Victim
?She got out of the vehicle and walked to the house. I got out of the vehicle and looked to the front of the vehicle and the same time someone just grabbed me from behind, and I felt like I got juk in my throat. And when I look in hand I saw lone blood. So I just took off my shirt and my girlfriend just ran back to me, and I hold my throat with my shirt and reach the hospital.?

Lewis says although he did not get to see who stabbed him he did mange to see the person who described only as a dark complexioned man get back into a vehicle that was waiting for him.

Cecil Lewis
?I grabbed the person the person by his hand. Then he flew off–he ran off and he run to the car. Then he jumped into the car and then they drive down street.?

?Well they had about four somebody in the car, but the person run and jumped straight into the back seat, and then they drove off. It is a blue Toyota Corolla car with tinted glass.?

Jacqueline Godwin
?You could not make out the license plate number??

Cecil Lewis
?No, it happened too fast.?

While Bowers received nine stitches doctors left Lewis?s wound to close on its own. Both men are recuperating at home but are left troubled about who would attack them for no reason.

Cecil Lewis
?No idea. I do not even know the person at all, because I no have nothing on the street with nobody. Everyday I go by the same area to pick up my stepson. I never catch in anything out there, so I no know why.?

?I meet Bowers when I get the hospital. I asked him the same question and he said he does not know dah who because dah back on catch him. He never see the person or noting.?

Jacqueline Godwin
?It looks like he was in the same area.?

Cecil Lewis
?The same area.?

Carlton Bowers
?I really do not know why they attacked me man. I do not if they really know who I am. You know a part of Amara Avenue is dark and it was right along those areas there. I did not see who it was or with what or nothing.?

Bowers, who still works out regularly, says the injury has now forced him to stop training. Meanwhile Lewis has some difficulty breathing but he is hoping to recover fully. As for the person who inflicted the wounds? Police say they are still looking for the attacker and are appealing to anyone who can assist in the investigation to call the nearest police station or CrimeStoppers at 0-800-922-TIPS. One theory being advanced is that the assaults may be a part of a gang initiation ritual.