Family and friends of a man who tragically lost his life in a deadly mass stabbing in Huntington Beach on the Fourth of July gathered Sunday to dedicate a bench along the beach in his name.
Eric Hodges, 42 , along with another victim, 47-year-old William “Bill” Collins, were celebrating Independence Day with a large group of people near 16 th Street and Pecan Avenue around 11 p.m. when the tragedy occurred.
Amid the celebrations, authorities say a suspect in a Mini Cooper pulled up, exited the vehicle and began stabbing people. It was later learned that the suspect was on hallucinogenics.
The assailant was tackled by two men and held until police arrived.
Hodges was stabbed in the heart. Collins was stabbed in the lung and neck. Both were pronounced dead at the scene. Three others suffered non-life-threatening injuries.
“By the time I came out there, he’d been killed, and Bill has been killed and a bunch of other people were stabbed,” Hodges longtime friend Adam Cook told KTLA at Sunday’s ceremony. “It was just shocking, and it was completely out of the blue. The whole thing was totally unprovoked.”