KNOXVILLE, Tenn. — Neighbors on Burwell Avenue in North Knoxville said an alleged knife attack in their neighborhood Saturday is not how they want their community defined.
Terry Brooks stepped out of her home on Saturday night to what she thought was a car wreck, but saw commotion and fighting in the street right in front of her home instead.
"It was actually the third phone call to KPD this week about the homeless people," Brooks explained. "It took these children getting stabbed to get a response."
She said she saw Tracy Fazekas fighting two women in the street.
"The cousin to the mother came to her car and got a baseball bat out and then they were all on the other side if the car, and they started beating the woman that was attacking with the baseball bat," Brooks said.
She also saw a 12-year-old girl and boy with knife wounds.
"You keep hearing more and more commotion and these two children come running up and the little boy was bleeding from the hand where he said he's been stabbed," Brooks remembered.
Now, she can't get that picture out of her head.
"The crying and watching them shake and shiver," Brooks recalled. "The quivering of their mouth is what got me the most. That they couldn't talk. We tried to get them to sit down, but they couldn't sit because of what was happening to mom."
The co-owner of Steamboat Sandwiches on Central, Meredith Cole, said she saw the police presence from the storefront.
"We felt safe enough to be outside because we were told it wasn't a shooter or anything like that, but we definitely wanted to know what was going on," Cole said.
Benjamin Conaway lives in the neighborhood and manages a community garden on Burwell. When he heard about the attack, he was shocked.
"For somebody to kind of act out seemingly unprovoked it's very kind of surprising and shocking and it was unnerving, I mean I think any rational person would be unnerved by that," Conaway explained.
He doesn't want people to think that's the sort of climate Oakwood-Lincoln Park lives in.
"It doesn't really need to be glossed over, it's a significant situation, but it doesn't represent what's kind of going on here at large," Conaway said. "And that's something I'm thankful for."