A 36-year-old woman stabbed two others at a temporary housing facility for private security guards working for Comic-Con.
Around 2 a.m. on Monday, the suspect began stabbing air mattresses in the San Diego High School gymnasium, claiming someone had stolen her possessions, reports 10 News.
Two other security guards who confronted the woman were subsequently stabbed.
The suspect fled the scene but was captured just a few minutes later by authorities. Her name has not been released.
Both victims who are in their 20’s and the alleged attacker were taken to a local hospital. All injuries are said to be non-life-threatening, according to San Diego police.
The approximate 150 security guards staying at the facility were employed by Staff Pro, an event staffing agency based in Huntington Beach, California.
The San Diego Unified School District says the organization has been renting out the gym space for Comic-Con employees since 2013 with no prior altercations.
A spokeswoman for the district says they commonly rent out space to various companies.
“It is not standard practice to have district police on site when an outside vendor rents a room or facility at one of our schools,” she said.
Booda Davidson, a Staff Pro employee, says although he has worked big events like Comic-Con before, he has never had to sleep around 150 people. He says employees were becoming aggravated with the hot and crowded gym.
“Staff needs to be watching over their employees more, need to be checking on different people; probably have them in hotels. I just feel like all of this was caused by emotional distress.”
Staff Pro says group housing is not common for its event employees and it is looking into how to handle employee housing in the future.
Comic-Con is hosted annually at the San Diego Convention Center, drawing in over 130,000 attendees in recent years. According to the San Diego Union Tribune, the event brings in an estimated $135 million annually to the region’s economy.
