Incident at Convict Lake
An altercation between two men at Convict Lake leads to a stabbing by fillet knife
A disagreement between two men at Convict Lake on Sunday led to one of the men stabbing the other, according to both a Mono County Sheriff’s press release and Convict Lake Resort and Marina employees.
The altercation occurred in the shale beach area on the eastern side of Convict Lake, on the afternoon of Sunday, September 3, said Convict Lake Resort employee Shannon Glenn.
“We never have that happen up here,” said Convict Lake Marina Manager Dave Ward, who is an EMT and who was one of the first to encounter the stabbing victim. Ward did not know the age or name of the man who was stabbed.
“It’s always so peaceful up here, we don’t have a lot of problems,” said Ward on Wednesday, September 6. Ward said he believed the victim “threw a rock in the water and the [alleged assailant] got upset and started a confrontation and it ended up in a stabbing.”
“The party that stabbed [the victim], as far as we know, is on the loose,” said Glenn. “I guess there were a few people who saw the incident, but no one tried to apprehend him because he was dangerous.”
Ward said that other recreationists had observed the alleged assailant being aggressive prior to the altercation with the stabbing victim.
“It sounds like he was kind of an angry guy,” said Ward. “He actually confronted one of my customers in the [rental] boats, claiming they were getting too close to him. Then when this guy [the victim] had thrown a rock down, he came up just ballistic and started a fight.”
Ward said he believed the victim actually had the suspect in a “choke hold, and was trying to get the knife away from him, but ended up getting stabbed in the process.”
Ward said that the incident was reported to him due to the lack of cellular phone service in Convict Canyon. He said that the Mono County Sheriff’s Office were on a call on Benton Crossing Road, and it took them slightly longer than average to respond. “When the Sheriff’s Office didn’t show up, after about 10 minutes, I started walking up the trailhead because I heard somebody was injured,” said Ward, noting that he “didn’t want to jump in the middle of a guy with a knife.”
He said that almost immediately “this guy was walking towards me holding his stomach.” Ward said the victim had skinned knees and a knife wound that, to him, appeared “superficial.”
However, he said, “it was a fillet knife [used by the alleged perpetrator], and [the victim] had a pretty good gash into his stomach.”
“From our understanding he’s okay, he wasn’t critically injured,” said Glenn of the victim. “Whoever stabbed him missed his vital organs.”
Mono County Sheriff Ingrid Braun told The Sheet on Thursday, September 7 that the Sheriff’s Office is “looking for additional witnesses that may have seen some or all of the incident.”
