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Man Who Stabbed 8-Year-Old Had Planned to Attack a Child

WESTBURY, NY – The wild-eyed Long Island man who stabbed an 8-year-old boy playing video games has a history of mental illness and had planned the attack, prosecutors said.

Evan Sachs, 23, was allegedly carrying a note saying he was committed to hurting a child when he walked into a Dave & Buster’s in Westbury Friday night and plunged a knife into the boy’s back five times.

“It’s an attack, judge, that he had thought about,” said Nassau County assistant district attorney, Daniel Looney, said in court Saturday, Newsday reported.

The boy was rushed into emergency surgery with a collapsed lung, but the injuries are not considered life-threatening, authorities said.

Investigators said Sachs appeared to have no connection to the child or his family and the baffling attack seemed to be random.

Sachs’ lawyer, Charles Rosenblum, said his client “is under psychiatric care,” and takes five different medications, some of which had recently been changed.

Sachs had worked until recently at a movie theater in Farmingdale and has no criminal record.

His parents, Daniel and Randi Sachs, told Newsday that their son “is not a bad person.”

“They are all devastated by what happened,” Rosenblum said.

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A deranged Long Island man jammed a hunting knife into an 8-year-old’s back five times Friday night while the child played video games at a family restaurant, cops said.

Evan Sachs, 23, crept up behind the child at Dave and Buster’s in Westbury, L.I., put his hand on the boy’s shoulder and stabbed him with the black 4-inch blade, cops said.

The bleeding child staggered to his mother – sitting just 20 feet away – and collapsed.

His father heard the mother screaming and rushed over. A customer who saw the stabbing approached the dad and told him the attacker was hiding in the bathroom.

Together, they detained Sachs until cops arrived. He was arrested and charged with attempted murder and criminal possession of a weapon.

The boy was rushed to an area hospital and treated for a partially collapsed lung, among other injuries. He is in stable condition after emergency surgery, police said.

Cops were baffled by the attack. Sachs has no apparent relationship with the boy or his family, cops said, nor does he have a criminal record.

“There’s no link between the two at all,” said Lt. Kevin Smith of the Nassau County Police Department. “The attack seems to have been unprovoked.”

The victim and his parents told police they don’t know Sachs or his family, Smith said. They live in different towns and are all different ages.

“They had no interaction at all, and why he plunged a knife into this small boy is unknown,” Smith said. “It’s just a tragedy that something like this happened. He was there for no other apparent reason but to commit this type of act.”

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