By Connor Adams Sheets
A stabbing in the streets of Ridgewood sent a man to Elmhurst Hospital with life-threatening knife wounds to his chest Saturday night, a police source said.
Three men were drinking at El Arco Iris Restaurant at 811 Seneca Ave. when an altercation broke out and spilled into the street out front, the police source said, where two of the men beat up the third, a 32-year-old Hispanic man, then stabbed him in the chest and fled.
Two neighbors said one of the pursuers was wielding a shovel and that the man was pinned up against a car when one of the men stabbed him in the chest with a small knife.
“When the ambulance came, the guy was laying in the road covered in blood,” said Adrian Vasile, a neighbor who said he has called police about previous fights on the block.
The man did not die as a result of the knifing, police said.
Vasile said he was walking to the Seneca Deli at 801 Seneca Ave. when a dispute broke out between the men. The victim was stabbed in front of the deli, according to Vasile and another neighbor, and he stumbled a few doors closer to El Arco Iris before collapsing. 
After the attack, the two assailants then fled the scene on foot, said Vasile and another neighbor, both of whom described the men as Hispanics in their 20s or 30s.
No arrests have been made in the case and the victim’s name has not been released, the police source said, although police handcuffed a man who tried to leave El Arco Iris and put him in the back of a police car more than an hour after the stabbing.
Police had no further information Tuesday afternoon about the man who was handcuffed, including his name and what his medical status was.
The area has been a hot spot for violence for four years, according to Vasile.
“It’s always fights here, always fights, always fights,” Vasile said. “People fought outside last night and last week in the street. … There were shots on this street a couple months ago.”
The police source told a different story, saying El Arco Iris “is not a bar that’s even on our radar.” Two men and two women who left the bar Saturday night declined to comment and the telephone number printed on its awning was out of service Monday afternoon.
Anyone with information about the stabbing was asked to call the 104th Precinct Detective Squad at 718-386-2735.
Reach reporter Connor Adams Sheets by e-mail at csheets@cnglocal.com or by phone at 718-260-4538.
