'You don’t hit girls': UW student stabbed while protecting women during parking spot dispute

SEATTLE -- A fight over a parking spot near the UW campus almost cost a 19-year-old student his life.

Graham Harper was stabbed and slashed while trying to protect two women. Now he hopes that his experience sends an important message.

“You don’t hit girls,” said Harper.

Flowers, cards and balloons line Harper’s hallway. Family, friends and strangers offered him well-wishes.

Harper was stabbed  six times and now 70 staples close the wounds

“I look like Frankenstein all over my body, held together with staples,” he said.



It all happened at NE 55th Avenue and Brooklyn Avenue NE in late January when Harper said a stranger punched two women.

“I didn’t really think that guys really hit girls that much until this thing happened,” he said.

Harper said after he stepped between the attacker and a woman, the assailant pulled a knife and slashed him.

He was rushed to Harborview Medical Center, where he spent a week in recovery.

Police said the suspect ran but they caught up to him at his apartment less than a mile away and arrested him.

The 21-year-old suspect is out of jail on $35,000 bail. People who answered the door said the suspect no longer lives at the address.

Harper said he holds no ill will toward his attacker. He also said he would do everything all over again if he had to – because he believes there’s never a reason to assault a woman.

“At least to me he’s a coward,” he said. “The fact that he would even do this puts him in a different echelon of people in general. Kind of like the same reason you don’t get mad at an animal who bites you out of fear.”

The suspect is scheduled for arraignment on February 11.