Reports differ on the day of the stabbing: Boston 25 News and the Globe say Sunday, while WHDH says Monday. The Globe and WHDH place the incident near Humboldt Avenue and Seaver Street. A man says he was stabbed on an MBTA bus after he stepped in to stop another passenger from screaming racist insults at an older woman and then shoving her. Shane Vautour suffered a roughly three-inch stab wound to his left abdomen along with cuts to his hands during the confrontation, which unfolded on a bus just before 10:30 p.m.
Vautour told Boston 25 News that the trouble started when the man began yelling at the woman. “He started screaming and swearing at her saying very unkind and racist things at her,” Vautour said, according to the station. Vautour said he then saw the man shove the woman, and that is when he intervened.
What happened next left Vautour hospitalized. According to WHDH, one of the two men produced a knife during the fight and stabbed the victim in the torso area, slashing his hands in the process. The outlet reports the injuries were non-life-threatening, and the suspect fled the bus before being located and taken into custody.
Conflicting Accounts of Where the Bus Fight Happened
Conflicting Accounts of Where the Bus Fight Happened Exactly where the bus was when the confrontation began depends on which outlet you read. The Boston Globe describes the stabbing as happening on an MBTA bus in Roxbury following what it called a “verbal dispute” between two passengers. Boston 25 News, in a separate report on the same incident, says Vautour got off the bus near Humboldt Avenue and Seaver Street after the fight. Both accounts agree the fight happened aboard an MBTA bus.
Police have not publicly identified the suspect or released the charges he faces, per Boston 25 News' reporting. WBZ-TV reported on the incident, with Vautour recounting that he was trying to stop a passenger from making racist remarks at a woman.
Victim Hospitalized After Stepping In
Vautour's account paints the picture of a bystander who chose to act rather than look away. He described watching the verbal abuse escalate into a physical shove before he moved to protect the woman, only to be met with a knife. The stab wound to his abdomen and the cuts to his hands, as detailed by Boston 25 News, required hospital treatment.
A separate and unrelated 2017 case saw a woman driving an MBTA bus in Lynn stabbed twice, according to CBS News. A man was taken into custody after another man was stabbed on an MBTA bus.
As of the latest reporting, no charges had been publicly confirmed against the man in custody, and police have not released his identity.
