UPDATE: Sacramento police now just confirmed that they will be charging this case as a hate crime and have issue a warrant for Timothy Brownell’s arrest.
UPDATE: Musical Charis singer Blake Abbey just chatted with me on the phone. He is recovering from surgery on his arm at the UC Davis Medical Center.
Abbey describes Sunday as a great day. His friends from the band Slaves, a local hardcore rock group, had just returned to town from tour. He wanted to show them an “amazing day,” he says. This included hanging out on the river and fishing and, later, barbecue at Tank House in Midtown, then drinks at LowBrau.
Around 11:30 p.m., the group—Abbey, his brother Bradley Abbey; plus Slaves members Alex Lyman and Wes Richmond—decided to walk to “Soul Night,” a popular Sunday night dance party at Press Club for music and restaurant industry folk.
Abbey says they were arm-in-arm, goofing around and having fun while walking southbound on 21st Street. As they passed O Street, two standing near a motorcycle parked out front of Alley Katz began hollering at them.
“They start yelling at us, talking shit,” Abbey says, making comments about their “skinny jeans,” calling them “faggots.”
Words were exchanged. But then, “literally within seconds,” one of the men, allegedly Timothy Brownell, 25, pulled out a knife.
“The knife was fucking huge, bro,” Abbey explained. “Iit looked like a prop knife like in Rambo.”
Abbeys says he thought it wasn’t real, that the whole thing was a joke, at first. His brother yelled to drop the knife. The others did, too. Abbey tried to walk away.
Then, according to Abbely, Brownell swung the knife at Slaves guitarist Richmond and sliced him in the stomach. He saw his shirt rip. And he saw blood.
The accomplice with Brownell was trash-talking to Abbey. “The guy was running his mouth, ‘You’re so lucky we don’t have guns, you would’ve been killed by now.'”
Then, suddenly, Abbey felt the knife stab him. “He put the knife through my arm, then pulled it. The knife went all the way through my arm,” he explained. “He stuck it all the way through my arm, coast to coast.”
Abbey says he still cannot fathom the knife’s size. “The dude stabbed three of us, the knife was fucking huge.”
He ran quickly as he could to Press Club, where a server from Block Butcher Bar saw him bloodied and helped him by grabbing towels and wrapping his arm.
Abbey recieved seven packets of stitches for his 12-inch-long wound, he says.
Lyman was first in the ambulance and was, according to Abbey treated on the scene because of a dangerous stab wound near his ribs.
Richmond’s hand is broken and will not be joining Slaves on Warped Tour; they are scheduled to depart this weekend after headlining Concerts in the Park this Friday night. Abbey is supposed to drive the tour van.
“I’m really, really fucking bummed. I’m going to have thousands and thousands of dollars in medical bills, and this dude stabbed three people and he’s already out of jail,” Abbey said.
ORIGINAL BLOG REPORT: Blake Abbey, singer of popular local band Musical Charis, was walking home last night in Midtown with a couple friends from very popular local rock band Slaves, including Alex Lyman. The trio was walking near 21st and O streets just before midnight when two young men appeared out of nowhere. They called the musicians “faggots,” and ridiculed them for wearing tight “skinny” jeans. They brandished knives. And then, they used the knives.
Lyman was stabbed in the side, a four-inch cut that nearly hit his spleen. He also was sliced on his throat. “There was no confrontation and nothing was done to provoke this,” he wrote on Instagram after the attack.
Abbey wrote on Facebook that his arm was “completely mangled” by a “7-8 inch Rambo knife.” He ran to the nearby Press Club after the attack to receive help, while Lyman helped fend off the attackers, he says.
A female witness was able to identify one of the suspects, Timothy Brownell, 25, and this lead the police to his residence. He was arrested on charges of firearms possession and assault with a deadly weapon. Another suspect also was booked.
“Wish the world could stop hating what they don’t understand,” Lyman wrote. His band, which has more than 94,000 “likes” on Facebook, is scheduled to headline Concerts in the Park this Friday. The show will go on, he wrote.
