Close to a dozen Police officers swarmed City Hall car park yesterday arresting four men after a brutal, broad daylight knife attack in front of lunch-time crowds, commuters and tourists. Eyewitnesses told The Royal Gazette that the four men first pounced on their victim, another young male, at the temporary Hamilton bus terminal.

The victim was reportedly stabbed there but got away. The attackers chased him into the adjoining car park where they continued their assault, kicking and punching the man on the ground and beating him with the blunt side of a hatchet or hammer.

Bystanders at the crowded terminal were shocked into action by the violent attack and called Police on their mobile phones to report the incident.

While several eyewitnesses spoke to, all refused to be named for this article. The witnesses said the attack was swift and vicious but differed in their descriptions of the weapons used, with some reporting they saw a machete and a hammer, others a short knife and a hatchet. ?I saw them stab him,? one man said. ?He could be bleeding inside but did not even know it.?

He said the victim was stabbed with a ?short knife?. ?While he was down one of the guys was bent over him and went ?chucka, chucka, chucka? into him,? he said. ?He did not know that he was bleeding.?

The witness was at the bus terminal with his wife when they saw the four men run up behind their victim and punch him in the face.

?There was much blood,? he said. ?Four of them beat him up in the bus terminal. Then, after he got hit, he ran into the car park. They caught him and hit him with a hatchet on the hammer side. They hit him in the body with the hatchet. They punched him in the head. The cops moved very fast.?

He said everyone who was waiting for buses and saw the fight started to call Police when they saw how serious the attack was. ?We were watching a guy getting licked but you can?t do nothing,? he said.

Another witness to the attack said the knife the attackers used appeared to be a machete.

?I saw someone thump him and hit him in the back of the head with the back of a machete,? she said, adding she was getting off a bus with her baby when she saw the attack.

?The man who was beat up ran onto the Number Two bus for Ord Road,? she said. ?There were four guys ? one in a red shirt and a dark-skinned guy with a black hat on.?

The witness said she believed the man attacked was from Ord Road and had gone to Paget Primary. ?(He) was tall and had a twist in his head. Those boys beat him up,? she said. ?He tried to get away. It happened and then I heard the sirens.?

Another eyewitness, a Public Transportation Board (PTB) worker, said she called Police to report the attack but was so shaken that she first dialled a wrong number before successfully getting 911.

?They were chopping him with a hatchet,? she said. ?They stomped on his head and stamped on his face. He was hollering and screaming and tried to run away. I called the Police. I was screaming on the phone.?

She said she did not see a lot of blood, because they were using the hammer end of the hatchet, and that she thought the fight was over jewellery.

?It was for his jewellery, he had a watch and chain in his hand,? she said. She said she could see a ?thick chain? on the victim. ?He was so scared. They were thumping on his face between the benches over there. It started right in front of the booth that I was sitting in.

?But that poor guy, if no one had called the Police they would still be over there beating him, stamping on his head.?

As Police arrived on the scene, the victim had fled on a bus and the attackers were climbing into a blue car to try and make a getaway. But Police stopped both the bus and the car, apprehending all the men involved in the incident.

Police spokesperson Dwayne Caines said it was ?too early to say that the crime was gang related? but the matter is being investigated. Mr. Caines would not confirm whether the fight began over the theft of some jewellery.

Police were seen looking in the trunk of the blue car but Mr. Caines said ?more than likely they were looking for the weapons used for the commissioning of the crime?.

Mr. Caines said Police responded to scene around 12.15 p.m. By 12.26 p.m. Police had handcuffed the culprits and put four men into seperate marked and unmarked Police cars.

While witnesses reported that four men attacked the victim, Police said only three men were arrested and the man attacked was also taken into custody.

?It appears that a group of men were involved in an altercation with one of the men brandishing a machete and a hammer,? Mr. Caines said. ?Upon seeing the Police, the suspect jumped into a car with two other men but the car was intercepted by Police and all three men were arrested.

Also, the victim hopped on a bus and left the scene but Police stopped the bus and apprehended him as well.?

?Details into this incident are still sketchy and Police are asking anyone with any information into this incident to please contact Central CID at 295-0011. ?No one was seriously hurt,? Mr. Caines added.