PANAMA CITY — All it took was a look, a perceived slight, for Marlon Sequeria to get stabbed three times with a screwdriver on Tuesday morning.
Sequeria was on the phone outside of the Greyhound Bus Station at 917 Harrison Ave., trying to gather enough money for a trip to St. Petersburg. The 18-year-old Tallahassee native said he was looking to start a new life with family members in the Tampa area.
An unidentified man arrived and started asking other would-be travelers if they wanted to buy an MP3 player, Sequeria said. According to Sequeria’s description, he was dark-skinned, although his race is unknown, short and wearing a red shirt and track pants.
Sequeria said the man, about 25 years old, confronted him because Sequeria was looking at him funny. When he called Sequeria a kid, Sequeria responded that he was a grown man and started to posture for a fight.
“You grown?” Sequeria said the man asked him, while retrieving an 8 inch screwdriver with the handle wrapped in a yellow plastic bag that was concealed in his pants.
When he put the tool in Sequeria’s face, the fight started, according to witnesses. The two grappled before ending up on the bus station floor, Sequeria said. The man gained the advantage and thrust the screwdriver into Sequeria’s right side three times. It didn’t end up puncturing the skin, leaving marks akin to bad bug bites.
“It felt like I was kicked with combat boots,” Sequeria said.
At that point Michael Luoman, of Dallas, and Cory Cravens, of Panama City, stepped in to take the screwdriver out of the man’s hand and held him down. Sequeria then kicked the man while he was down.
“I would have done the same thing,” Luoman said.
The man was able to scramble to his feet. He picked up the screwdriver, which Cravens had thrown against the wall, and it looked to Sequeria like he was going to attack again. Luoman believes the man saw a police car approaching north on Harrison, which is when he left the building and headed north on foot.
“He wasn’t running but he was walking with a quick step,” Luoman said.
Panama City Police are investigating the incident and searching for the alleged attacker.