Police said the victims are expected to survive, but no one had been taken into custody.
BROOKLYN, N.Y. — Three people were stabbed Sunday afternoon outside a Brownsville apartment building, and investigators were still trying to identify those involved after the victims declined to cooperate with police, authorities and local reports said.
The violence unfolded just before 1 p.m. on Dumont Avenue near the Van Dyke Houses, a public housing complex in Brownsville. By late Sunday and into follow-up reporting, police had not announced an arrest, and investigators had not publicly explained what started the confrontation. The case drew attention because it happened in broad daylight in front of neighbors and passersby.
Police said officers responded to 430 Dumont Ave. and found three people hurt: a 25-year-old woman with a stab wound to the lower abdomen, a 23-year-old man with a stab wound to the abdomen and a 26-year-old woman with a wound to the buttocks. Emergency crews took all three to area hospitals, where officials said they were expected to recover.
What happened in the minutes before the stabbing remains unclear. Video shared with local television showed a chaotic struggle outside the building. In the footage, a woman appeared to be thrown to the ground, and a man appeared to be holding a knife while people moved through the area. At one point, someone pushed a baby stroller through the middle of the scene, underscoring how public and sudden the violence was.
Investigators have not said whether the people involved knew one another or whether the stabbing grew out of an argument, a fight or another dispute. One witness told News 12 the encounter escalated almost instantly. “Everything was going so fast,” the neighbor said, describing a rapid struggle that left little time for people nearby to understand what was happening before the victims were wounded.
The investigation was complicated by a lack of cooperation from the injured people, according to police sources quoted in local reports. That left detectives working to piece together the sequence of events through witness accounts, video and evidence at the scene. Authorities had not publicly described a suspect in the immediate aftermath, and there was no public word on whether a weapon had been recovered.
For residents, the timing of the attack stood out as much as the violence itself. The stabbing happened in the middle of the day in a busy part of the housing complex, where neighbors were home and children and families were moving through the area. Mike, identified by News 12 as a longtime neighbor, said episodes like this can shake a community that is trying to feel more stable. “Sometimes it looks like it’s getting better and then something happens and it goes back,” he said.
As of the latest reports, no one was in custody and police had not announced charges. The next step is likely to center on identifying the attacker, confirming the role of each person seen in the confrontation and determining what triggered the stabbing.
Author note: Last updated March 31, 2026.