Two people were stabbed in Providence on Wednesday afternoon, leaving both victims with injuries that did not appear life-threatening, police said. Officers were called to the 195 block of California Avenue after reports of an assault involving the two victims.
Providence Police Department spokesperson Kristy DosReis said the suspect is known to one of the victims, according to turnto10.com, which reported that the suspect had already been taken into custody. That account conflicts with reporting from WPRI.com, which stated that the suspect left the scene and remained at large as of its report. The discrepancy between the two accounts has not been resolved.
Beyond the conflicting detail about the suspect's whereabouts, few circumstances of the stabbing have been confirmed. The outlet's report noted that the circumstances surrounding the incident remained unknown at the time of its reporting, and turnto10.com similarly confirmed the case is still under investigation, with no further details released about what led to the confrontation or how the two victims came to be injured.
A Pattern of Daytime Stabbings in the City
Wednesday's incident adds to a string of stabbing cases that have surfaced in Providence over recent years. A 2024 report described two separate daytime stabbings in the city, including a man reportedly stabbed in the stomach on a sidewalk in front of a church on North Main Street, and another man stabbed on Hartford Avenue following an argument that turned physical, per the same turnto10.com account. In a separate case, police said 37-year-old Terrell Bliss allegedly stabbed a man in the thigh on Douglas Avenue, according to WPRI.com. Another past incident described by WPRI.com involved officers finding a man with a minor laceration to his stomach. None of those earlier cases has been tied to Wednesday's stabbing on California Avenue.
Violent Crime Trends Across the City
The stabbing comes as Providence's broader violent crime numbers have trended downward in recent reporting periods. The city recorded 291 violent crimes in the first six months of 2025, down from 345 during the same stretch in 2024, according to the Providence Journal. The same report found that gun-related aggravated assaults dipped slightly, from 35 to 31 over that period, and that Providence's annual violent crime total fell from 1,062 in 2019 to 715 in 2024.
Providence Police Chief Oscar Perez previously said that violent crime was down 16% year to date and that firearm-involved violent crime had dropped 15%, with the homicide rate down 27% and sex offenses down 19%, turnto10.com reported in earlier coverage of city crime data. That same reporting noted that while overall crime jumped 11% month over month in August 2024, violent crime dipped the following month, with police investigating 152 simple assaults and 21 aggravated assaults in September 2024, a decrease from August's tally of 42 aggravated assaults, 156 simple assaults and seven shooting-related incidents. Those figures reflect broader citywide patterns and are not tied to Wednesday's stabbing on California Avenue.
No additional information about a motive, weapon, or relationship between the suspect and victims has been released. The investigation into the California Avenue stabbing remains active, and police have not indicated when further details might be made public.
