Update: Good Samaritan explains how MMA experience helped during Alderwood Mall stabbing

Update: The wife of Phillip Herrera, who is accused of stabbing the Alderwood Mall food worker, said her husband is not a violent person. She spoke on behalf of the 38-year-old suspect who made his first court appearance Tuesday. Police say he stabbed the food court worker Sunday during an argument and then attacked a good Samaritan who tried to intervene.

The good Samaritan, Jonathan Gover, told KIRO Radio’s Dori Monson that he left church with his girlfriend and her daughters and were eating in the mall’s food court when he saw two guys fighting. Gover, a professional MMA fighter and Navy veteran, said he grabbed one of the men by the neck and pulled him off — getting stabbed in the leg in the process. Listen below to why he says he jumped in while others fled.

Original: A stabbing was reported Sunday afternoon at the food court of the Alderwood Mall in Lynnwood.

The Lynnwood Police Department said that a 37-year-old male suspect got into some sort of confrontation with an employee at the Food Court in Alderwood Mall at 1:51 p.m. and that the suspect in custody. The suspect stabbed the employee.  The victim was transported to Harborview Medical Center.

The worker was badly injured, but a nursing supervisor at Harborview Medical Center told KIRO 7 that he is in satisfactory condition.

The Seattle Times reports that the mall was temporarily shut down. The attack sparked pandemonium as shoppers rushed to get out of the mall.

“I didn’t know what was going on,” Pallabi Singh, of Bothell, told KIRO 7. “And then I saw the police car come in and I saw the fire truck come and we just left because people were just — they were in a hurry and had a weird expression on their face. So we knew something happened, but we didn’t know what it was.”

A second individual in his mid-30s who intervened during the assault sustained a small cut, according to the police department. KIRO 7 reported that two women hurt fleeing the mall are expected to be OK.

Eyewitnesses told KIRO 7 that a man began stabbing a worker in the mall’s food court.

“I know that he was an unhappy customer in the food court,” said Lynnwood Fire Battalion Chief Jason Turner. “But I don’t know the specifics.”

Turner said then a second man, in his mid-30s, jumped in.

“Just a patron,” said Turner. “Someone here at the mall, a good Samaritan, trying to put a stop to what he thought was someone trying to take another person’s life. So a hero.”

This is the second stabbing in the mall in as many months. A man in his 30s was reportedly stabbed near JC Penny on Dec. 24, 2016, when he attempted to break up a fight between two teenagers.

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