Woman stabbed on Muni train describes attack

SAN FRANCISCO (KGO) -- A Muni passenger stabbed on a light rail train Monday talked about it for the first time Tuesday morning, recounting her terrifying ordeal. Her attacker is still on the loose, but police are hoping to soon close in on the man who may have hurt others on Muni before.

"I still feel shaky and a little scared that it happened, but just lucky. I don't know," 24-year-old Rachel Haynes-Brown told ABC7.

Brown expects to leave San Francisco General Hospital sometime Tuesday and said she plans to get right back on Muni so she can get to San Francisco City College where she attends classes. That is where she was headed Monday morning when a total stranger came at her with a knife.

"I'm shocked and everything's just overwhelming," she said. "Because, you know, people don't think that they're going to wake up in the morning and get stabbed randomly. So, it's just really shocking and a little kind of scary."

Haynes-Brown remained in an emotional state Tuesday morning, 24 hours after the attack that could have killed her. She saw the disheveled man get on the J-Church street car. His pants were falling down and his shoes were tied around his neck, but she thought little of it and fell back to sleep.

"I woke up to somebody hitting me in my stomach and then I turned around and seen somebody running off the train," she recalled. "And then, I just remember thinking why would somebody do that? Why would somebody just come hit me? It doesn't make any sense."

At first, Haynes-Brown did not know she had been stabbed. Moments later, her girlfriend Gabby Winder made the horrifying discovery.

"I just felt it wet and I took my hand down, and it was just red with blood," she said. "And, I just turned her to her side and I seen the blood, and that's when everybody just kind of started freaking out on the bus."

Police are wondering if the attacker was the same man who knifed an 11-year-old boy on a Muni bus on Van Ness Avenue in September. The descriptions are similar, an African American man between 24 and 40 years of age, about six feet tall, with a full beard and bad body odor.

Muni surveillance video is not clear in this recent incident and is being digitally enhanced in an effort to get a good picture of the attacker.

Haynes-Brown says she may be shaken, but holds no ill will towards Muni.

"I'm not scared to get back on the Muni, at all," she told ABC7. "I mean, this is just something that happened randomly. Stuff like this happens all over San Francisco. I don't feel target I guess, or anything."

The stabbing happened at Church and Market which is in Supervisor Bevan Dufty's district. He is calling for more Muni presence and wants more police on the buses and street cars. It is a tall order but he says safety has got to be the number one concern for the people in charge of safety on Muni.

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san francisco news, terry mcsweeney

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