Let's not jump to any conclusions here.
A woman traveling on a Massachusetts bus allegedly slashed the throats of two fellow passengers in what police are calling an “unprovoked attack.”
Police said 26-year-old Brietta Brown pulled out a knife while traveling on a Pioneer Valley Transit Authority bus in Hadley and began threatening passengers just after 4 p.m. on Wednesday, officials said.
The bus was traveling from Northhampton to Amherst.
Brown reportedly stabbed two people, and police described the injuries as non-life threatening. The driver, who had pulled over, and other passengers were quick to disarm Brown and retrain her until police arrived.
Guess the deity she began praying to. You'll be surprised to hear the answer.
The video shows Brown sitting calmly after boarding the bus. She was seated on the passenger side of the bus behind the victims, who were sitting together. "At no point in time was there any interaction between them prior to the attack," Chabot wrote.
Brown could be seen on the footage removing the knife from her pocket and unsheathing it. She then grabbed a female "her by the head ... and made a left to right slice to the victim's neck."
She then attacked the male after he stood up reacting to the assault. She "made multiple slashing motions" and cut him at least once, according to Chabot's report.
Afterward, while Brown was in Chabot's cruiser, "she began praying to ALLAH, (and) after arriving at the station she continued to pray and would not break her concentration to speak with any officers."
"I'm so sorry, I don't know what came over me," Brietta Brown said, according to the arrest report. "Please apologize to them for me, will they survive? I hope Allah will forgive me."
There was assorted crazy behavior afterward. So Brown might be nuts, but criminals and terrorists have been known to fake crazy if it suits them. Still her history would suggest, crazy. And that's a demographic that stabbing people for Allah has also been known to appeal to.
And it's unclear why Brown was even on the loose.
In cases from May to November 2017, Brown was convicted of misdemeanor charges for assault and battery, disorderly conduct, assault and battery on a police officer, breaking and entering, and larceny, according to a Massachusetts Criminal Offender Record Information (CORI) report.
In a statement dated Oct. 10, 2017, the victim said Brown approached her as she was sitting in front of TD Bank in Northampton with her boyfriend and that Brown attempted to steal her bag. When the woman attempted to stop Brown, Brown struck and choked her until she "couldn't breathe."
That should have put her away for a long time. Instead she was quickly out again.
Some two months before Wednesday's bus incident, on Feb. 21, Brown was involved in another violent incident that led to her being charged with domestic assault and battery and disorderly conduct.
So now maybe she'll spend a little more time in jail before being set loose again.