California: ‘It was a bloodbath’: Ashkan Amirsoleymani stabs two nurses and a doctor at Encino hospital

Jihad? Possibly. But Amirsoleymani reportedly had a dog with him, and that makes jihad less likely, as Islam hates dogs. Ashkan is a Persian name. Could this be revenge for Soleimani, a la the strange recent attack in Nevada?

“Witness describes ‘bloodbath’ at Encino hospital, says bystanders shut stabbing suspect in storage room,” by Alex Wigglesworth, Los Angeles Times, June 4, 2022:

When Parham Saadat saw a bloodied man outside Encino Hospital Medical Center, his first thought was that the man was a patient seeking treatment.

But then he realized the man was wearing scrubs, and there was no one around him rendering aid. Saadat and his coworker, who were leaving work at a nearby dental office, ran across the street to help the nurse.

“He tells us, ‘There’s somebody inside, a patient who stabbed me,’” Saadat said. “‘And he’s stabbing other people inside.’”

The patient, whom police identified as Ashkan Amirsoleymani, 35, was taken into custody Friday night on suspicion of stabbing two nurses and a doctor. Police said he appeared to have entered the hospital under the guise of seeking treatment for an unspecified ailment. All three victims were hospitalized and stable Saturday, according to investigators.

Saadat and his colleague, Faraz Farahnik, of Encino Dental Smile, asked people in the hospital’s front reception area for towels to control the bleeding of the male nurse who had been stabbed, he said. “His guts were out,” he said. “He had a pretty bad slash.”

The man told them that the patient had said he had a gun, then pulled out a knife and stabbed him, Saadat said. They called for an ambulance and helped load the man onto a gurney, he said.

Someone then ran out of the hospital begging for help, saying there was a doctor who had also been wounded, he said.

Saadat and Farahnik entered to find a chaotic scene, he said. Police hadn’t yet arrived. “People were kind of confused about what to do,” he said.

“There was blood all over the floor, blood in the rooms, blood on the gurney the doctor was laying on,” he added. “It was a bloodbath.”

A tall man wearing a blue flannel shirt and holding a knife was calmly pacing around, he said. He entered a small room that appeared to be a storage area, and Saadat ran up behind him and closed the door, he said.

“A nurse came and helped me hold the door, and then a security guard came,” he said. “We asked them to hold the door closed.” The man did not try to push his way out but stood over a sink, possibly wiping his knife, he said.

“The guy wasn’t even reacting,” he said. “He was just standing in the room, his back toward the window of the door. I’m not really sure what he was doing. But it was definitely pretty creepy.”…

The suspect had a small black dog with him, but a nurse picked it up during or after the stabbings, Saadat said.

The dental hygienist said he’s received training to deal with these types of emergencies and doesn’t consider himself squeamish. Despite the traumatic nature of the experience, fear set in only when he made eye contact with the man while holding the door to the storage room closed.

“He just very calmly turned his face and looked at me through the window, then turned his head back around. No reaction,” he said. “That’s where it kind of got me.”