The man who died of multiple stab wounds apparently inflicted on Cacique Street on Saturday has been identified as Alberto Suarez Torres, Santa Barbara Police Department spokesperson Anthony Wagner said on Tuesday. Responding officers found Torres on the sidewalk of the 1300 block of Cacique Street after a 9-1-1 call came in to dispatch at 1:15 a.m. on June 1. The 29-year-old’s death came close in time to several other reported stabbings, but Wagner said they had no definable relationship to the death of Torres. The first happened on Sunday in Goleta’s Old Town, when a man was stabbed on Magnolia Avenue, also early in the morning, and survived. Two others were radioed in Tuesday morning – one a man who checked himself into Cottage Hospital after a domestic altercation and the second an incident in the Milpas area deemed “unverified” because a victim could not be found.
Wagner acknowledged that four reported stabbings in a row (one unverified) was “an anomaly” but given the circumstances of the incidents, there didn’t appear to be an “uptick” in violence in Santa Barbara.