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A witness described running to the aid of a woman brutally stabbed when a knife-wielding man unleashed himself in a fatal attack.
Nikita Denton watched in horror as the man stabbed a knife into a woman on the streets of Birmingham last night.
She was one of eight people attacked in the downtown stabbing wave that claimed the life of a man.
The police have launched a manhunt to bring the murderer, who is still at large, to justice.
Nikita described running towards the injured woman along with her friend Jay.
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(Image: BBC)
She told BBC Midlands Today: “My friend put his hands under his head and assured him that everything was going to be fine and that the parademics were trying to do their job.
“The paramedics didn’t have a flashlight at all, so I took out my phone and turned the flashlight off.
“I got some water. We kept it and we calmed the situation down and the parameics were grateful for our help.”
The attacker was “cold” and “calm” when he left the scene, said restaurant owner Savvas Sfrantzis.
When a heroic bar manager told the killer “I recognize your face,” the man holding a knife replied “whatever,” Sfrantzis added.
The 64-year-old man, a veteran of the city’s licensed trade, said it was around 1.55 a.m. when he turned when a woman behind him yelled from across Hurst Street.
Mr. Sfrantzis said, “I heard the scream, so I looked around and looked the other way and I could see where the screams were coming from.”
He said there was a girl with her back against some shutters and a man very close to her.
“So I’m thinking, ‘Either they’re fighting and he’s the boyfriend or he’s trying to rob him,'” she said.
“She screamed a lot and very loud.
(Image: BBC)
“I looked at him, right in front of him, and I can see that he had a blade, small, not very big, and he was stabbing her in the neck.
“It happened really fast and then you know the girl is going down (to the ground) after a few minutes and I can see the attacker.”
Mr. Sfrantzis added: “He started walking, not even running or trying to hide, as if nothing had happened.
(Image: Lee McLean / SWNS)
“I never heard him say anything except when she started screaming, and the Sidewalk (nightclub) manager – told the attacker ‘you stabbed the girl.’
“The guy walks down the street, smiling and walking, slowly.”
He said the Sidewalk manager and another man tried to pursue the attacker.
“He started walking faster, they kept their distance because he had a knife,” he continued.
“So he walked down past Hurst Street and the Gay Village.
“The Sidewalk manager came back and said ‘we chased him behind Eden (another nightclub) and I lost him.’
(Image: PA)
Sfrantzis, owner and manager of Santorinis and Mykonos bar and grill, said the man returned and the Sidewalk manager confronted him once more with courage.
“The manager said to this guy, ‘I know your face, I know what you look like,’ and the attacker said ‘whatever,'” Sfrantzis added.
He said: “I saw another guy wrapped up, in a wheelchair, with blood everywhere, he was badly stabbed but he kept talking, screaming.”
“I was screaming, I was fucking stabbed,” he added.
Mr. Sfrantzis also recounted how the girl was stabbed between five and seven times.
(Image: SWNS)
He described how police arrived “almost immediately” and handed over his bar’s CCTV to detectives in an attempt to aid in the chase.
Mr. Sfrantzis, who had not slept since the incident, said: “It’s very shocking and it’s a shame, because the guy, to my knowledge, has yet to be caught.
“But he wasn’t trying to run or run, when you stabbed someone you think you’re trying to hide and run.
“He was just smiling.
“I’ve had restaurants for 30 years, and I’ve never seen anything like it, I’ve seen fights, I’ve seen arguments.
“But, so cold, you know?
(Image: PA)
“The guy was out of this world, he didn’t give a damn what happened.
“Just smile and laugh.”
Sfrantzis, fearing a terrorist attack, immediately ordered the doors of his restaurant closed, with his Mykonos staff and some 30 customers still inside.
He also recalled yelling at the man “he stabbed a girl”, trying to warn others.
He added: “It was horrible, horrible.
“I have never seen anything like this, it was very cold.
(Image: REUTERS)
“It happened really fast, there were people coming and going down the street, it was 2 in the morning, you know, probably thinking ‘girls scream sometimes’.
“But no one noticed, just me and the other bar manager.”
Another man, who declined to be named, said a friend had told him how a neighbor on Barwick Street, on the other side of town, had been among those stabbed while smoking a cigarette.
The doorman said: “He lives in the apartments down there but he’s a smoker so he went out to smoke and the guy stabbed him.
“My friend had to use towels to help stop the blood.”
Police have already linked the attacks on Hurst Street to a fatal stabbing on Irving Street and two incidents on Barwick Street and Livery Street, near Colmore Row.
West Midlands Police declared a major incident after receiving reports of a stabbing just after midnight Sunday, before they received more calls of further attacks.
West Midlands Police Chief Superintendent Steve Graham said the incidents appeared to be “random”, with “no suggestion” that the night’s events were terrorism-related.
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