Stabbing suspect may be linked to Muni attack

SAN FRANCISCO — Police are investigating whether a 31-year-old man who allegedly stabbed a woman in San Francisco's Tenderloin neighborhood Saturday is the same person who stabbed an 11-year-old boy on a San Francisco Municipal Railway bus in September, a police lieutenant said.

Anthony Gracie, a transient, was taken into custody late Saturday morning after allegedly stabbing and trying to rob a woman at Jones and Sutter streets as she walked to work, San Francisco police Lt. Lyn Tomioka said.

The woman was transported to San Francisco General Hospital and is expected to survive, according to Tomioka.

Gracie, who was arrested on suspicion of attempted robbery and assault, bears a similar description to the suspect in the stabbing of Hatim Mansori on Sept. 1, Tomioka said.

She declined to describe the similarities between the suspects but said investigators on Monday will meet to discuss each crime to determine whether they are related.

"We have witnesses in both cases and now we have a suspect," Tomioka said. "(The investigators) will take all of the steps to determine if this is in fact the same person. At this person it's just a little too early to tell."

Mansori was riding home alone when a man attacked him at the back of the bus, stabbing him once in the abdomen, police said.

The incident happened near 19th and Mission streets. The suspect, described as possibly homeless, jumped out of the bus and ran off, according to police.

Mansori was rushed to San Francisco General Hospital, where doctors said he might have bled to death if he had arrived five minutes later.