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Police on Saturday identified the man who allegedly stabbed a doctor and two nurses inside the Encino Hospital Medical Center in Los Angeles on Friday afternoon and remained inside a room for hours before police arrested him.
Ashkan Amirsoleymani, 35, has been booked on three counts of attempted murder related to Friday’s attack, the LAPD said Saturday.
He is being held on $3million bail. It was not immediately clear on Saturday whether he had an attorney who could speak on his behalf and the district attorney’s office did not respond to an email asking whether charges have been filed.
Police have not yet disclosed Amirsoleymani’s motive and Los Angeles Police Officer Rosario Cervantes said no other information was available Saturday.
The LAPD did say that Amirsoleymani had several previous run-ins with the law, including arrested twice in the past for assaulting police officers. He had been arrested as recently as last year.
Amirsoleymani walked into Encino Hospital Medical Center in the San Fernando Valley shortly before 4 p.m. Friday, police said.
He had parked his car in the middle of a street and went to the emergency room, where he asked for treatment for anxiety before stabbing the doctor and nurses, authorities said.
Ashkan Amirsoleymani (pictured on stretcher), 35, has been booked on three counts of attempted murder related to Friday’s attack, the LAPD said Saturday
One dental hygenist who rushed over to help described the scene as a ‘bloodbath’
The LAPD said that Amirsoleymani had several previous run-ins with the law, including arrested twice in the past for assaulting police officers. He had been arrested as recently as last year
Parham Saadat, a dental hygienist who works nearby, said that he and his coworker Faraz Farahnik ran across the street to help the victims.
‘There was blood all over the floor, blood in the rooms, blood on the gurney the doctor was laying on,’ Saadat told the newspaper. ‘It was a bloodbath.’
Saadat said he later closed a storage room’s door behind the suspect to keep him contained inside and only became afraid when they made eye contact.
‘He just very calmly turned his face and looked at me through the window, then turned his head back around. No reaction,’ he said. ‘That´s where it kind of got me.’
The male attacker holed up in a room inside the hospital after the stabbing.
Parham Saadat (pictured left), a dental hygienist who works nearby, said that he and his coworker Faraz Farahnik ran across the street to help the victims
Amirsoleymani walked into Encino Hospital Medical Center in the San Fernando Valley shortly before 4 p.m. Friday, police said
Amirsoleymani was taken into custody at 5pm PST, according a representative for the hospital.
Fire officials said three victims were taken to a trauma center in critical condition. Police later said one was in critical condition and underwent surgery.
Dignity Health Northridge Hospital Medical Center said two of the victims have been treated and released. The third victim remains hospitalized in fair but stable condition, the TV station reported.
The hospital did not immediately respond to requests for comment Saturday.
The attack began around 3:50pm, and took place in the vicinity of the hospital’s emergency room.
One of the victims of the Encino Hospital stabbing being taken away on a stretcher on June 3
A victim being being brought out of Encino Hospital after being stabbed by an attacker on Friday afternoon
Footage from KTLA News 5 shows a victim being taken out of the Encino Hospital in a wheelchair after being stabbed
Four people were stabbed at the Encino Hospital Medical Center in Los Angeles on Friday afternoon
The attack began around 3:50pm, and took place in the vicinity of the hospital’s emergency room
LAPD said that the suspect had a lengthy record, including two arrests last year for resisting arrest, and for battery of a police officer.
The hospital declared an ‘internal disaster,’ and halted admitting new patients or allowing visitors to enter.
Footage from ABC 7 showed a victim being wheeled out on a stretcher, while scenes from KTLA News 5 showed another victim being taken out in a wheelchair.
The victims’ identities are not yet known, but a witness told NBC LA that they saw two nurses and a female doctor with wounds.
A stretch of Ventura Boulevard outside the hospital remains closed.
The suspect (head visible at center) being loaded into an ambulance after being apprehended
Deputy Chief Alan Hamilton updates the media after the suspect was taken into custody
Emergency responders outside the Encino Hospital Medical Center on Friday afternoon after reports of stabbing attack inside
Benjamin Roman, an ultrasound technician, told NBC4 that before the stabbing, he saw the suspect, who had a dog with him and who might have been high on drugs because he looked anxious and was drenched in sweat.
After the hospital issued an ‘internal triage’ code, Roman said he saw a doctor and a nurse who had been stabbed.
‘The doctor looked (like) she was in pain,’ he said. ‘There was a lot of blood and it looked like … he might have got her abdomen.’
Nickels, in an email, said the hospital’s staff faced the harrowing situation with ‘incredible courage, calmness, and dedication.’
‘Their focus throughout remained on the safety of staff and patients,’ she wrote.
The attack came only two days after a gunman killed four people and then himself at a hospital in Tulsa, Oklahoma. The assailant got inside a building on the Saint Francis Hospital campus with little trouble, just hours after buying an AR-style rifle, authorities said.
The man killed his surgeon and three other people at a medical office. He blamed the doctor for his continuing pain after a recent back operation.
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