A man who didn’t want to wear a mask while visiting a Manhattan Apple store stabbed a security guard on Friday night, witnesses and police sources said.
The suspect approached the Ninth Ave. entrance of the Apple store on W. 14th St. in the Meatpacking District around 6 p.m., said the witnesses.
The unidentified man confronted the guard when he was asked to put on a face mask, said a police source and witnesses.
“I heard them yelling and pushing and shoving,” longtime area resident Roberto Monticello said of the feud between the guard and the unmasked man.
Blood spilled onto the wounded security guard’s shirt, Monticello said. “He was cut on his side. He was bent over clutching himself,” he said.
The suspect ran north on Ninth Ave., and Monticello watched as the guard’s colleagues dragged him to safety inside the store.
Two workers brought him to an area behind a spiral stairway near the store’s entrance where they administered first aid. A trail of blood around the stairs marked their path inside the store.