By Kim Wilmath, Times Staff Writer
Saturday, October 16, 2010
TAMPA — Two men were hospitalized and another was arrested following a knife fight early Saturday morning that ended in gunfire.
Just before 2 a.m., a man was with some friends in the 6600 block of Monroe Street visiting his girlfriend when another group of men drove up and started talking to the woman, said Tampa Police Lt. Ronald McMullen.
An argument ensued, and the second group of men left and returned in a maroon car with more men, McMullen said.
They approached the visiting boyfriend and began to fight. McMullen said one of the men in the boyfriend's group took out a pocket knife and began stabbing the attackers.
Then one of the men in the attacking group, later identified as 21-year-old Eric Payne, got a gun from the car and began shooting at the boyfriend's car, McMullen said.
No one was shot, but two of the men in the attacking group were hospitalized with stab wounds. They were both stabilized at the hospital a few hours later, McMullen said, though one was in serious condition.
Payne was arrested at about 5 a.m. after dropping his friends off at Tampa General Hospital. He was charged with shooting at a vehicle, being a felon in possession of a weapon and violating probation for a previous charge of carrying a concealed firearm. He is being held without bail.
The boyfriend had minor bruised, McMullen said.
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