Customer at Market in Springfield Cuts Off His Hand

When a butcher was retrieving an order in a freezer for a customer at Super Halal Meat market in Springfield, the customer sawed off his hand, then ran from the store into a parking lot yelling that he was not a terrorist. Rescuers took him to a hospital, and an official said it is believed he has mental problems. (By Lois Raimondo -- The Washington Post)

About 30 seconds later, the man began walking toward the street. By now, workers and customers had poured out of nearby stores and were shouting at the man to stop.

"He wouldn't stop," Vikas Sinsunwal said.

The man cursed at and ran from police officers who arrived a few minutes later, witnesses said. As he neared the busy intersection of Backlick Road and Spring Garden, witnesses said, police tackled him on a grassy area across from an appliance store.

Later, the man's son walked alone toward the butcher shop with a vacant look on his face, Shivani Sinsunwal said.

"I was so sad to see him like that," she said. "I mean, what could have gone through him? He saw his dad take his hand off, you know?"

Super Halal Meat closed Saturday evening while a cleaning agency scrubbed the premises, Asghar said. Health inspectors gave the go-ahead for the store to reopen Sunday morning, he said.

The man came once in a while to Super Halal Meat, but no one there knew his name. Vikas Sinsunwal recognized him, too, but they had never exchanged names.

Yesterday, a piece of cardboard blocked the narrow walkway that separates the shopping area of Super Halal Meat from the work area, where meat is cut with a vertical saw, a large contraption mounted on a shiny metal counter. Asghar said a large door will be installed to block the space. A freshly handwritten sign, a replacement for one that was spattered with the man's blood, was taped on the glass front of the meat counter. It read:

"Employes Only

Please Stay Out Side

Thanks"

Asghar stood behind the counter with a butcher knife in his hand. In more than a dozen years at the shop, he said, nothing has ever been so startling.

"You never think about it -- never, ever," Asghar said. "Things don't happen like that."