As the Subway staffer stabbed Wednesday by 26-year-old Nicholas Flusche recovers at home, Flusche's family is "in shock" following his fatal shooting by the police officer who intervened in the attack.
As previously reported, witnesses say that Flusche stabbed an unidentified employee at the Subway restaurant at 940 Market Street at 11:22 a.m. Wednesday. Two San Francisco Police Officers who were walking a foot beat happened upon the altercation, and one of them fired at Flusche, killing him.
Since that day, additional details have been released on the victim, the incident, the man who was shot, and the police officer who did the shooting. Here's what we know:
Shots fired in Subway at 900 block Market St pic.twitter.com/1Jfs48Ovwh
— _ (@R27D) May 3, 2017
It all began when Flusche allegedly refused to pay for a sandwich
According to NBC Bay Area, who spoke with witness Kevin Ramsay:
Flusche walked into the Subway restaurant and asked the employee to make him a sandwich, but refused to pay for it, at which point the employee told him: "No money, no sandwich." The suspect then pulled out his knife, and started attacking him, sources said.
"I see this guy behind the counter just stabbing the clerk, so he needed help, and I helped him," Ramsey said. "He was covered in blood head to toe. I grabbed his arm and held it, and we fought for (the knife) till the cops came in the door to do with they had to."
"The cops came in and told us all to get down, and he wasn't complying, so I'm not gonna get down," Ramsey said. "So I pushed him away from me and got out of the way, and he came after the cop, and the cop did what he had to do and shot one time."
The cop who shot Flusche was also behind SFPD's last shooting, in January
The shooting of Sean Moore, a mentally ill man who was unarmed when shot by San Francisco Police Department Officer Kenneth Cha, raised eyebrows at the time for the discrepancy between police accounts of the shooting and what body camera footage reflected. In a bail hearing for Moore Thursday, Deputy Public Defender Brian Pearlman said that it was Cha who also shot Flusche.
“I have a source that I trust that has verified that it is Cha,” Pearlman told the Ex. “It definitely troubles me." According to the Chron, "Cha was previously assigned to the police department’s Taraval Station, he was transferred to the Tenderloin after the January shooting."
Man shot yesterday by @SFPD identified as 26 year-old Nick Flusche of Texas. Family & friends scratching their heads. pic.twitter.com/YrOuRqG3ph
— Lyanne Melendez (@LyanneMelendez) May 4, 2017
Nicholas Flusche has recently moved here from Texas, seemed like a regular guy
The Ex reports that Flusche "was from a Texas suburb and had recently relocated to the Bay Area," and had "attended Texas State University in San Marcos near Austin and had previously worked for a home security company." He'd moved to SF "to start a fitness and nutrition business," a friend said.
“Nick was always the person who was trying to solve problems,” a former roommate told the Ex. The stabbing "doesn’t sound like Nick at all. He was a great dude...He was a southern gentleman.”
The Chron reports that Flusche "didn’t finish his studies" at Texas State and "ended up working in sales for a surveillance company in San Antonio." He was "fired from that job three years ago," then "'fell off the grid' among his group of friends. It was unclear how long he'd been in SF.
“We are still kind of in shock," his father, Phillip Flusche told the Chron.
The victim is recovering at home
It's always odd in cases like this that so much ink is spilled on the attacker, while the victim appears to go nearly unnoticed. He hasn't publicly identified himself, which at this point is likely his choice and should be respected. According to the SFPD, he "was treated and released from San Francisco General Hospital late Wednesday evening, 5/3/17."
Via an email sent Thursday, a PR representative for Go Fund Me wrote "I wanted to make sure you had seen this GoFundMe campaign for the family of Nicholas Flusche."
When asked by SFist about the decision to promote the campaign, given the sensitive nature of the situation, a different representative of the company responded and said that they "apologize and will definitely share the campaign for the victim if one is created." So, if anyone knows the stabbing victim, please do pass that bit of information along.
Previously: Fatal SFPD Shooting Was Sparked By Argument Over Subway Sandwich