By: Jana Kadah and Eduardo Teixeira

San Jose State University Police (UPD) detained a suspect in front of Dwight Bentel Hall around 4 p.m. on Thursday after an altercation in the Martin Luther King Jr. Library.

“This gentleman allegedly brandished a knife at another person,” UPD Interim Chief of Police Alan Cavallo said. “When the officers went to make contact with him, he ran out of the library on his bicycle and took off.”

Police said the suspect fled the library on his bike before two UPD cars and officers surrounded him on the grass between Dwight Bentel Hall and the Spartan Complex. Officers pointed their guns toward him, and the suspect cooperated immediately.

The alleged victim, Alan Jekyll, came near the patrol cars to identify the suspect but said he was not sure whether the man in handcuffs was the right one.

“I don’t think it was him,” Jekyll said. “I definitely can’t say 100 percent I can’t even tell you 60 percent. If I was 100 percent, I would tell you that.”

The suspect was arrested wearing a white t-shirt, a black rosary, gray jacket and black pants.

“I can’t ID him . . . he had darker colors on and he had a dark and black jacket, no white t-shirt. I don’t remember a necklace. Maybe dark colored pants, like dark blue or black, and he didn’t have any gray [hair] – he wasn’t that old,” Jekyll said.

However, marketing senior Andy Cormier, who witnessed and tried to break up the altercation, said he believes the suspect was the man involved in the altercation.

“There was a bookcase between me and him,” Cormier said. “I saw his face, I remember he was wearing a white shirt and a jacket. My friends who had been in the library longer and heard him making weird noises said he was wearing black sweats. I didn’t see those but out there I saw him in black sweats, white shirt and a jacket.”

Cormier said he saw both men yelling before he decided to step in. He didn’t see a knife but said if he had, he wouldn’t have interfered.

“According to the guy holding the chair, the other guy had a knife,” Cormier said. “I did not see the knife. They both stepped back, [the suspect] walked away, and the guy who was holding the chair thanked me for breaking it up.”

Jekyll, who frequents the library, said the man randomly threatened him with a knife as he was sitting on the third floor.

“He was sitting on the couch and just showed [the knife] and said ‘stop looking at me like that’ and then I got up real quick,” Jekyll said. “So I assumed he was going to come up right behind me. I got up out of the chair and it was a reaction. I pulled the chair out and picked it up by the handles in case he got at me and he did pull [the knife] out again.”

However, from Cormier’s perspective, the altercation looked different.

“I actually thought the person holding the chair was the aggressor, so I was focusing my attention on him,” Cormier said. “Which is why I didn’t look at much details of the other guy, I just remembered his face and the white shirt.”

UPD Sergeant Michael Silva said officers are “still trying to figure that stuff out,” referring to whether or not the suspect had been identified as the offender.

“He was aggravated, and he [the suspect] was like, ‘Man, you guys got me here, he’s the one threatening me! He came at me twice! This is self-defense!’ ” behavioral science junior Mary Orozco said.

Orozco followed the UPD cars and witnessed the suspect getting detained.

A volunteer counselor at Grace Baptist Church who only identified himself as Steve, recognized the suspect as one of the homeless men who sometimes stays in the church.

“This guy was one of our residents,” said Steve, who witnessed the arrest. “Every night he slept in the gym on one of the cots and he actually helped out quite a bit by mopping floors and things of that nature. I don’t see him as a guy who is allegedly pulling a knife to somebody.”

UPD officers searched the suspect and found a knife in his pocket.

“In my experience by working with the shelter, 99.9 percent of the homeless people have a knife on them, or some type of weapon,” Steve said.

He added that knives are an essential part of homeless people’s survival.

“Hopefully it’s not the guy, but if it is, I’m glad we had San Jose State police here because again, it’s not unreasonable for him to have a knife,” Steve said. “They [homeless people] all have knives.”

UPD is still investigating.

“If they [the victim] positively identifies him [the suspect], then he will be going to jail,” Cavallo said.

If the suspect is positively identified, then he could be charged with the “brandishing of a weapon,” Cavallo said.