Chelsea Police are following several leads and interviewing witnesses regarding a brazen and brutal stabbing on Blossom Street Monday afternoon by multiple attackers.
Capt. Keith Houghton said the 14-year-old is a student at Chelsea High School (CHS), but was not at school on the day of the attack.
Supt. Mary Bourque confirmed that the student was absent and the school – though nearby – was never part of the attack and was never in any jeopardy. She did confirm he was a student there, but could not give his name.
Police said around 1:40 p.m. the young man was stabbed multiple times by at least three people – one of whom was on a bike.
Witnesses at the scene said they had observed the attack and saw the three alleged perpetrators flee up Carmel Street.
Those witnesses then found the young man lying in the street and gravely injured. They alerted police, who responded and had the young man transported to Mass General.
He was in serious condition at first, but is now in stable condition.
“Two detectives interviewed the witnesses and have briefly been able to speak to the victim at the hospital,” said Houghton. “Based on that information and evidence recovered at the scene, we are working on identifying his attackers.”
Houghton said one of the first things police did when they found out the age of the youth was to check CHS and make sure the incident hadn’t started there or filtered into there. It was quickly confirmed, he said, that all was quiet at the school and that the young man had not reported to school on Monday.
Unconfirmed reports on the street were that the young man – after having been stabbed – was crawling up Addison and Blossom Street and pleading for help, calling out that his attackers were going to kill him. Those cries for help, perhaps, are what alerted several nearby witnesses to the brazen daylight attack and sent the perpetrators fleeing.