Source: www.timescommunity.com
July 26, 2006 Author: By: Jason Jacks
In a surreal scene, police said a man purposely cut off one of his hands in a
Springfield butcher shop Saturday evening.
The grisly incident occurred in Super Halal Meat along the 7000 block of Spring Garden Drive, which bisects Brookfield Plaza, home to numerous Asian, Indian and Middle Eastern eateries and markets.
"I'm still numb talking about it," said Vikas Sinsunwal, who saw the man after he severed his hand.
Sinsunwal said he was outside his parents store, Niralla Sweets, when the man, announcing "I did this for Allah," approached his parents' shop lifting his bloody left arm into the air. "I could actually see bone in his wrist," he said.
He said after staring through the front window of his parents' store for several seconds, Sinsunwal said the man then walked toward traffic on busy Backlick Road as people poured out from surrounding businesses. He said police eventually arrived and grabbed the man as he attempted to evade the officers.
Mary Mulrenan, a spokeswoman with the Fairfax County Police Department, said officers were called to the scene for a person brandishing a weapon, but instead found "a man missing a hand."
After securing the man, she said police then called paramedics who transported him to Inova Fairfax Hospital for medical treatment and psychological evaluation.
Mulrenan would not say how the man, who was not identified, amputated his hand.
However, local NBC 4 News reported the man, while waiting on his order of goat meat, walked behind the butcher shop's counter and sliced off his hand presumably with an electric meat cutter. His teenage son was with him at the time.
Police said no criminal charges will be filed.
