The owner of a Chinatown bakery in San Francisco says the man arrested in the stabbing behind the counter of one of his workers also stabbed his dad in 2016.
Henry Chan told ABC7 that police tell him suspect Fook Poy Lai is the same man convicted of stabbing his father in 2016. A jury convicted Lai and sentenced him to nine years in prison, but he was let out on parole less than two weeks before being arrested in the latest stabbing, reports SFist.
Public defender Diamond Ward says something is wrong with the system.
“The question I think that we have to ask ourselves is: What are we doing as a community, as a society, with individuals like Mr. Lai who have extensive mental health conditions?” Ward said to the San Francisco Chronicle. “The criminal justice system denied Mr. Lai access to proper mental health and preventative care.”
Chan told ABC7 his dad was playing poker in a park with friends when critically injured in the stabbing.
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“Very bad,” said Chan. “I think 12 days in the hospital.”
The woman stabbed in the bakery had just recently begun working there.
“The alleged attack in Chinatown left a woman seriously injured and a neighborhood shocked,” said DA Brooke Jenkins in a statement Wednesday to SFist. “I offer my unwavering commitment to pursuing justice and ensuring that the suspect is held accountable for this senseless crime.”
Lai is due back in court June 27.
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