ST. PAUL -- A driver followed a man who had cut him off here, stabbed him in the hand and chased him around with a knife trying to stab him again, according to a charge filed Friday.
When people gathered in the parking lot, the driver took off, but returned soon after and drove into the victim’s car, then sped away. The collision caused the driver’s license plate to fall to the ground, and it was turned over to police.
The license plate wasn’t what led police to David Gonzales Jr. of St. Paul, though. While officers were talking to the 42-year-old who had been stabbed, Gonzales called to report that he had been the victim of a stabbing and that a male had ripped off his front license plate.
When police went to Gonzales, they saw he had two scratches on his forearms. They also saw smeared blood on the vehicle that Gonzales, 35, had been driving and a folding knife between the driver’s seat and center console, the criminal complaint said.
The Ramsey County attorney’s office charged Gonzales with second-degree assault.
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The complaint gives the following account:
Police were called at 8:20 p.m. Thursday on a stabbing at a market on Arcade Street at Case Avenue. They found a man with a stab wound to his palm.
The man said he had been driving home, heading north on Interstate 35E, when he cut in front of a silver Mercedes. The Mercedes’ driver followed the man to the Arcade Street parking lot.
Before he got out, the other driver came at him with a knife and stabbed him as he raised his hand to defend himself.
Later, Gonzales told police an Asian man had stabbed him, that “(racial epithet) were taking over our land and that police had arrested an innocent person,” the complaint said.
Gonzales told a police investigator he was driving near Pennsylvania Avenue and Phalen Boulevard when he became involved in a road-rage incident. He said the other driver cut him off, honked at him and gave him the finger.
Gonzales said he followed the man to the parking lot because he wanted to ask why he was giving him a hard time. Gonzales said the man jumped out and stabbed him with a knife; Gonzales denied that he had had a knife.
He said he waited to call police until he drove home because he had consumed a couple of beers. He said he had been afraid to say where it happened “because he would have been harassed for drinking and driving,” the complaint said.
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The investigator asked how Gonzales’ license plate ended up in the parking lot, and Gonzales said the man had taken it off the car. The sergeant “laughed at the ridiculousness of Gonzales’s statement” and Gonzales admitted he “bumped the guy’s car” because he “was (expletive) pissed off,” the complaint said.
“Gonzales eventually became angry and said, ‘If I was going to cut him, I wouldn’t waste my time cutting his hand, I would have cut his (expletive) throat!” the complaint said.
Gonzales, being held in the Ramsey County Jail, is to make his first court appearance Monday. An attorney wasn’t listed in the court record.
Gonzales was convicted last spring of recklessly handling or using a dangerous weapon, a misdemeanor. He was released from one year of supervised probation at the start of May. He was convicted of misdemeanor DWI in 2006.
