Syracuse police investigate separate stabbings eight minutes apart on Saturday

Syracuse police spent the early hours of Saturday investigating two violent scenes eight minutes apart, and Sgt. Thomas Blake said there was “no reason at all” to believe the stabbings were related.

The first call came at about 4:28 a.m. to the 700 block of South Geddes Street on the city’s West Side. Officers found a 41-year-old man with a stab wound to his back and emergency crews took him to Upstate University Hospital. Police said he was expected to survive.

Eight minutes later, officers were sent to Lincoln Park Drive and Mather Street in Lincoln Hill for what started as a reported crash. At the scene, investigators found a 46-year-old man with a stab wound to his left arm. Police said he was the driver and believe the stabbing happened before the car crash.

The crash snapped an electrical pole in two, turning the intersection into both a crime scene and a utility problem. The 46-year-old man was initially listed in critical condition, but police later said he improved and was also expected to survive.

Syracuse police handled the two incidents as separate investigations, one on the West Side and one near Lincoln Park. The city’s open-data portal notes that police incident locations are mapped only to the approximate block level, not the exact address, which is why reports identify the first scene by the 700 block of South Geddes Street rather than a specific doorway.

The back-to-back calls came as city crime data for 2025 showed overall crime and violent offenses trending down compared with earlier periods, even as serious assaults continued to pull close attention from residents and police. Anyone with information about either case was asked to contact Syracuse police detectives.