Newly released surveillance footage captured the moment former Fall River, Mass., Mayor Will Flanagan was stabbed during an altercation on Monday afternoon.
Police announced Tuesday that a suspect has been arrested in connection with the incident. Flanagan was found Monday evening with stab wounds on Hartwell Street, near the Cosmopolitan Dispensary — a marijuana dispensary that he owns, WCVB reported.
Flanagan, who served as mayor of Fall River from 2010 to 2014, was taken to a nearby hospital in serious but stable condition, authorities said.
Police arrested 31-year-old Corree Gonzales in connection with the stabbing. He was scheduled to undergo a mental health evaluation on Wednesday morning, the outlet reported.
Surveillance footage of the incident shows the suspect running up behind Flanagan and making striking motions toward his head and neck. Flanagan raises his arms to defend himself, but falls to the ground during the struggle.
The suspect is then seen fleeing across the street, leaving Flanagan on the sidewalk. Moments later, Flanagan manages to stand, appearing disoriented, before limping toward a nearby housing complex where several bystanders were gathered, WCVB noted.
“I saw a guy mumbling some words. He came out, brushed up against the guy, stabbed him on the face and the neck. He was bleeding everywhere,” witness Karen Cange said. “He didn’t go into the building. He started to – he called 911.”
“He’s a good guy. I wish him a speedy recovery,” Cange told the outlet.
Fall River police report that Gonzales assaulted officers during his detention. He is charged with four counts of assault and battery against a police officer.
“They picked up a suspect this morning. Preliminary, it seems like it is someone who is known to them — had some mental health issues,” Fall River Mayor Paul Coogan said. “They are not sure if he had any relationship at all with the former mayor Will Flanagan or just a random act.”
According to court records, Gonzales has a prior criminal history, and documents from arrests in 2024 listed him as homeless.
In one earlier incident, Gonzales allegedly threatened his mother and sister. A police report from that case indicated that his mother told officers he had struggled with mental illness since the age of 15.
Police said Gonzales was taken into custody at about 8:30 a.m. Tuesday and later pleaded not guilty during his arraignment. He is currently being held without bail, according to WCVB.
President Donald Trump has been focused on reducing crime in major cities around the country, even as Democrats who run those cities oppose his efforts. That includes a notoriously violent stretch of Brooklyn, which is trying to fight crime — by asking uniformed police officers to stay away.
A two-block section of Brownsville in the NYPD’s 73rd Precinct was converted last week into a “police-free zone” as part of a city-funded project known as the Brownsville Safety Alliance (BSA). The initiative, which began under former Mayor Bill de Blasio, was initially held twice a year but has expanded to four times annually, The New York Post reported.
The program has drawn praise from anti-police activists and from socialist Assemblyman and mayoral frontrunner Zohran Mamdani. “He believes in what we do,” said Dushoun Almond, program director of Brownsville In Violence Out, the community group leading the effort.
Almond said Mamdani even visited one of the zones when it operated last April.
Under the plan, police remain on standby but are told to allow the community group to handle lower-level incidents such as disputes or minor disturbances. The operation ran daily from noon to 6 p.m. between Sutter and Pitkin avenues from Oct. 7 through Oct. 11.
Community members can still call police for serious crimes, including shootings or stabbings, but the group takes over for everything else. “They’re not gone, but they give us our room to control the block,” Almond said. “There’s a BSA every three months.”