SALT LAKE CITY — Farmers Market vendor Kel Prime said he heard a pair of men arguing on a street corner just outside Pioneer Park Saturday morning when one pulled a knife and stabbed the other.
"It was a pretty big kitchen knife," Prime said. "He got him good."
Prime, who along with his pregnant wife was selling skirts made of pillowcases, jewelry and vintage dinnerware at their booth near 400 South and 400 West, said police responded as he was calling 911.
A man was taken into custody about a block and half away, Salt Lake Police Lt. Scott White said. He said the victim was stabbed once in the stomach and was taken to the hospital for treatment.
The names of the suspect and the victim were not immediately available.
The incident didn't appear to disrupt the weekly market. Prime, who lives in West Jordan, was apparently one of the few people in the park mid-morning who even noticed the altercation.
"There's fights out here once in a while," said Prime, a newcomer to the market this summer. "But it's never gone to this point."
Veteran market goer Terri Jarrett of Holladay, said she and her family had seen the police when they arrived at the market, but weren't concerned.
"They've really cleaned it up," Jarrett said, recalling that in past years, there were more transients wandering through the park during the market and some "scary corners."
Jessica Plumb, toting her 4-month-old son, Sam, said she felt safe among the large crowd. "It's scary," Plumb said after being told of the stabbing. "But we come every week to the Farmers Market."
Longtime vendor Lauri Cox, a mixed media artist from West Jordan selling her wares in a booth near where the stabbing took place, didn't know what had happened, either.
"All I saw was a couple of police officers and heard the sirens," Cox said. She said was comfortable coming to the downtown park only on market days. "I wouldn't be here if I didn't feel safe."
The Salt Lake Downtown Alliance's Marc Vogel said no one had asked about the stabbing at the group's nearby market information booth.
"It was handled. None of the patrons even knew it was going on," Vogel said, noting the park is patrolled by off-duty Salt Lake police officers during the market. "We try to create a safe atmosphere."
Email: lisa@desnews.com Twitter: dnewspolitics