Three dead, six injured in string of San José attacks

Three people were killed and six others injured in San José and a neighboring city when a man randomly stabbed and struck victims with a pair of stolen cars, authorities reported.

Kevin Parkourana, 31, of San José was arrested Thursday evening for the string of half a dozen attacks that continued over the course of about an hour and a half, police from San José and the adjacent city of Milpitas announced Friday.

Parkourana was booked on suspicion of murder, attempted murder and carjacking in connection with the violence in both cities, San José Police Chief Anthony Mata said at a news conference. Mata called the attacks “random acts of violence,” adding, “there was no targeting of [specific] individuals.”

The crimes began a little after 3 p.m. Thursday in San José, when a man police later identified as Parkourana stabbed a person and stole a minivan near the south end of the city, sending the person to the hospital.

About 20 minutes later, the attacker left the stolen van and stole an SUV after stabbing its driver, police said. Driving the SUV, the attacker then struck a pedestrian. The original driver of the SUV and the pedestrian were hospitalized and said to be stable.

At about 4 p.m., the attacker, still in the stolen SUV, hit another vehicle in downtown San José before stabbing its driver, who suffered non-fatal injuries, police said.

A short time later and less than half a mile east, the attacker hit three people near an intersection, two of whom died at the scene, police said. The attacker then hit another person who was riding on a scooter on Alum Rock Avenue.

The final attack happened at about 4:32 p.m., when the attacker fatally stabbed a person in the parking lot of a big box store. Police said they found the stolen SUV abandoned nearby.

As police looked for the assailant, they said, search dogs indicated that the suspect remained near the scene of the final attack. Parkourana emerged from a parked car less than a quarter of a mile from the big box store, surrendering without incident, police said.

Parkourana had been on active probation at the time of the attacks, though authorities did not plan to detail his past criminal record, a San José police spokesman said Saturday.

The names of the victims had not been released. Police have yet to determine a motive.