On Friday, an altercation between two individuals left both injured and one suspect was taken into custody around 3 p.m. in the Dr. Martin Luther King, Jr. Library at San José State.

A video anonymously sourced to the Spartan Daily showed a man being detained by armed officers while another individual can be seen being administered medical attention on a stopped escalator.

Captain Jermaine Thomas of the San José State University Police Department (UPD) said the altercation involved a stabbing. 

“After 3 p.m. officers responded to a fight outside of MLK library, in which during the fight one subject was stabbed,” Thomas said. “After that the subject was detained until officers arrived on scene and the subject was taken into custody.” 

Thomas said the individuals involved are not affiliated with the university. 

Kayla Wong, a second-year business administration student, was on the fourth floor when she saw the suspect being put in handcuffs by police while the victim was lying on the escalator shouting for help.

“The security and everything was really quick once it got escalated… I saw the police or security come running through the other side,” Wong said. 

Wong said it took three to five minutes for paramedics to arrive at the scene after she first heard the commotion. 

Michelle Smith McDonald, the senior director of strategic communications at SJSU, sent a campus-wide email after the altercation occurred.

“Both injured parties have been transported to the hospital with non-life-threatening injuries and UPD has secured the scene,” Smith McDonald said.

The South Fourth Street and East San Fernando Street entrance to the library was temporarily closed while the remainder of the entrances stayed open. 

Blood could be seen on the steps leading up to the library near the South Fourth Street entrance after the scene had been cleared.

Mateo Deal, a first-year mechanical engineering student at SJSU got a text from a friend saying that there were cops outside of the MLK Library with blood on the ground. 

Deal said he drove over to the library and saw first responders cleaning up the blood on the front steps while they loaded empty stretchers back into their vehicles. 

Deal asked a witness who was recording the scene what they saw.  

“They told me that there was a fight in the MLK library up on one of the upper floors and someone had pulled out a knife and got stabbed,” Deal said.