SPRINGFIELD - Luis Sanchez was sprawled on the sidewalk and bleeding from two stab wounds when his alleged assailant walked past.



"That guy is dangerous. He always carries knives. I don't feel bad about it," Jose Ramos told two Springfield police detectives following his arrest outside the Worthington Street shelter last week, according to police reports.

While the detectives walked Ramos to their cruiser, patrolman Juan Flores was on the sidewalk, administering first aid to Sanchez, who had collapsed moments after being allegedly stabbed by Ramos, police said.

To stop the bleeding, Flores used the victim's shirt, then a towel, pressing them to his chest until paramedics arrived.

Two hours later, the victim was dead and Ramos, 34, of Springfield, was facing a murder charge.

During his arraignment in Springfield District Court last week, Ramos pleaded innocent to murder and was held without bail at the Hampden County House of Correction.

Few details of the killing were disclosed in court, although police said Ramos and the victim were both residents at the shelter and were arguing before the stabbing.

A defense lawyer for Ramos, Daniel W. Cronin, said he could not comment following the arraignment.

But documents in the court file, including the arrest report and witness statements, offer a fuller picture events leading to Sanchez' killing on March 10, the city's fifth homicide of 2015; two other killings occurred in the past week.

The trouble began about 6 p.m. when the two men began arguing in the basement of the shelter at 769 Worthington St. After they went outside to fight, a shelter employee notified officer Flores, was working a paid security detail that night.

When Flores ran outside to break up the fight, he saw Ramos clutching a 4- or 5-inch "knife-like object" and Sanchez pulling his shirt off, with blood coming from his stomach area, Flores wrote in his report.

"I ... ordered Mr. Ramos to drop the object" before calling for an ambulance and more police officers, Flores said.

By the time detectives Eric Podgurski and Matthew Longo arrived, Ramos was sitting outside with a shelter employee. When the detectives approached him, Ramos stood up and put both hands behind his back, allowing police to handcuff him, police said.

Asked if he had anything in his pockets, Ramos responded: "No, I already dropped the knife," police said.

A few minutes later, police located a woman who said she witnessed the stabbing and later identified Ramos as the assailant.



While sitting across the street from the shelter, the woman said she noticed two men fighting near the sidewalk; Ramos, dressed in a black jacket and pants, began making punching motions toward the other man, who was wearing a shirt with an sports logo on it, she said

"She didn't see a weapon but knew the male wasn't just punching the other male," according to a police summary of the interview.

The men pulled apart for a moment, but kept arguing. The victim pulled off his shirt and blood began running down his chest; moments later, he was stabbed several more times and fell to the ground, the woman said, according to the summary.

The witness, described as distraught, was later asked to identify Ramos.

"That's him; I remember the jacket and shirt he was wearing," the woman said.



Ramos is listed in court records as a driver for Quality Building Products in East Longmeadow. Sanchez was employed by the Springfield-based New England Farmworkers Council, according to court files.

During the arraignment, the judge scheduled a pretrial hearing for April 9.