By DON FLETCHER
News Staff Writer
Atmore police have released the name of the only person charged in the April 23 knife fight that took place in the Lindberg Avenue parking lot of Tractor Supply.
Although the Escambia County Detention Center website has no record of the arrest, WKRG-TV reported that Atmore Police Department Sgt. Darrell McMann posted to APD’s Facebook page that 19-year-old Luke Still was arrested May 29 when he was released from a Mobile hospital.
Still is reportedly charged with one count each of first-degree assault, third-degree assault, burglary, criminal mischief and theft. It is not known if the burglary, theft and criminal mischief charges are related to the stabbing incident.
The suspect, as well as the 16-year-old juvenile with whom he was fighting, were critically injured in the incident. Both underwent several surgeries, a factor police said played into their withholding charges against Still until more than a month after the violent confrontation.
Both the alleged aggressor and his victim were airlifted to area trauma centers, where surgeons worked to repair their wounds.
Reports are that two cars — one with three occupants, the other with a lone individual — pulled into the parking lot after having been involved in several arguments earlier that day in other parts of town.
They reportedly stabbed or sliced each other, but witnesses say Still took the other combatant’s knife away, then stabbed the 16-year-old “four or five times.”
Reports from more than a dozen witnesses are that the stabs were of such a violent nature that Still’s knife blade bent, forcing him to return to his car, get a pair of brass knuckles and another knife, and return to the fray.
Witnesses say he stabbed the younger man once again after doing so.
May 27 murder victim
City police have still not released the name of the victim in the May 27 shooting death on Terrace Street, but court documents show that it was Cynthia Dale and that she was killed by a single shotgun blast to the face.
Fred Dale Jr., 62, was arrested and charged with her murder, which happened around 4 a.m. during a domestic dispute.
Court documents also show that Fred Dale Jr. was under a “protection from abuse” order due to several arrests for prior domestic incidents involving the couple, who reportedly had lived together or shared a familial relationship for several decades.
The order specified that he was “not to threaten or commit any acts of abuse” against Cynthia Dale, and that he was prohibited from “harassing, annoying, telephoning, contacting or communicating directly or indirectly” with her.
Dale remained in the county jail early Tuesday, June 11. Jail records did not include whether he has been given a bond.