Assailant stabs transgender woman after melee on Muni bus

Samantha Hulsey was stabbed after an incident on a Muni bus in San Francisco on Saturday, Jan. 3, 2015. Samantha Hulsey was stabbed after an incident on a Muni bus in San Francisco on Saturday, Jan. 3, 2015. Photo: Courtesy / Rae Raucci Photo: Courtesy / Rae Raucci Image 1 of / 1 Caption Close Assailant stabs transgender woman after melee on Muni bus 1 / 1 Back to Gallery

An assailant armed with a steak knife attacked two transgender women in San Francisco, stabbing a 24-year-old victim two times in the chest, the couple said in an interview Sunday.

Samantha Hulsey, 24, was on a date with her partner, 52-year-old Rae Raucci, around 5 p.m. Saturday when they boarded the 49 Muni bus in the city’s South of Market neighborhood.

Almost immediately, a man on the bus, who authorities did not name, focused on the couple and “began acting violently,” Hulsey said.

“He started saying a lot of hateful things and messing with us,” she said. “He was threatening to hurt us. The way he was behaving leads me to believe he was on some kind of drugs. He was obviously not sober.”

The two women became more frightened when they noticed the man had a steak knife with “a three-and-a-half-inch blade and a big black handle,” Hulsey said.

The women exited the bus at Van Ness and Golden Gate avenues, where they said the man ran after them and plunged the blade into Hulsey’s upper chest, just below her neck. She said she put her hand over her wound, ran into a nearby McDonald’s and asked customers and employees to call police.

“I was afraid I was going to die,” said Hulsey. “I thought I was going to pass out on that floor and never wake up again. It was very traumatic.”

Hulsey said she saw her attacker in handcuffs as emergency responders were loading her into the ambulance. Fortunately, the blade did not puncture any organs. She was stitched up at a hospital and later released.

“I’m very sorry for the nice man who was enjoying his McDouble when I ran in bleeding and screaming for police,” she said.

Hulsey grew up in Savannah, Georgia but recently moved to San Francisco where she has been living openly as a woman.

“I had been bullied and had things thrown at me in Savannah but no one tried to kill me,” she said. “That sort of thing shouldn’t happen here.”

Police said the suspect is in custody but have not released further details about the attack.

Raucci, who is a first-year law student at San Francisco Law School, said the attack was a hate crime.

“He basically said we were offending him,” she said. “Transgender people are a part of the society that some people don’t understand, and what they don’t understand, they fear. It serves to show that violence can show up anywhere.”

Evan Sernoffsky is a San Francisco Chronicle staff writer. E-mail: esernoffsky@sfchronicle.com Twitter: @EvanSernoffsky