Sacramento police are searching for a suspect after an 18-year-old man was stabbed early Sunday morning in the Midtown area.

Officers responded just after 2 a.m. to the 1100 block of 21st Street, near K Street, where they found the man with at least one stab wound. Police said he was in stable condition and expected to survive.

Residents in the area said they heard a commotion around the time of the stabbing.

“At like 1:40 a.m., there was a ton of screaming, like a couple dozen people. It sounded like screaming and yelling and stuff,” Marceline Wilde, a Lavender Heights resident, said.

Wilde said the area can draw crowds in the early morning hours as people leave nearby bars and clubs.

“There’s a lot of stuff around here that stays open just after the bars get out, so people kind of gravitate towards this area. Plus, we’re in the middle of like 6 or 7 different bars and clubs and stuff,” Wilde said.

Jess Polakoff, who owned City Bicycle Works for 37 years before retiring, said the stabbing is concerning but won’t stop him from visiting the area.

“You know, it scares us. But it still won’t stop us from coming here. We may not come down here in the middle of the night,” Polakoff said.

Polakoff said the area is popular for its shops and places to eat, but crime can sometimes deter people from visiting Midtown.

“We have friends that live in the suburbs, like Arden Park and Gold River, and a lot of them don’t come down here that frequently. I mean, sometimes we have to encourage them, like, ‘let’s go meet and go out to eat somewhere downtown.’ but on their own, a lot of times they don’t come to Midtown,” Polakoff said.

One of the more violent crimes in Lavender Heights happened in November of last year. Months later, 58-year-old Alvin Prasad died after being assaulted outside the Badlands nightclub.

Polakoff said he hopes incidents like the stabbing won’t keep people from visiting the area.

“We hope that it gets investigated and they get to the bottom of it,” Polakoff said. “And maybe they need to have a bigger police presence or public security, or some other type of security.”

Sacramento police said there is no indication at this point that the stabbing was motivated by bias or was a hate crime. Police are asking anyone with information about the incident to contact the department.

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