Taylor “TJ” Vindigni had just finished a bartending shift at The Snug in the early hours of Tuesday and was enjoying a beer with a friend at The Fishbowl on Divisadero when he got up to use the bathroom.
Less than a minute later, a man approached as he was washing his hands and cut Vindigni’s throat from ear to ear with a boxcutter before stabbing him multiple times in the chest.
Tim Plump said he was outside The Fishbowl around 1:30 a.m. when he heard a commotion inside the bar. Plump walked to the bathroom to investigate and found Vindigni “gushing blood from the neck,” with a look of horror on his face.
“He said, ‘Help’ or something like that. It was not spoken in pain; it was a lot more like fear,” Plump said. “You always wonder how you’re gonna act in these situations. Whatever happened, I kind of just figured it out.”
Plump called 911 and handed his phone to another patron, then guided Vindigni against a wall and applied pressure to the wound on the left side of his neck. Plump said he kept talking to Vindigni until paramedics arrived.
“I was really trying to have him speak to me the whole time,” Plump said. “Every time he’d slow down speaking, I’d just kind of talk to him and shake him a little bit and just do my best to keep him awake.”
On Monday, police said Vindigni suffered life-threatening injuries, and investigators had arrested Patrick Hamer, 43, on suspicion of attempted murder, aggravated mayhem, assault with a deadly weapon non-firearm, and other assault charges.
Shannon Labutski said Vindigni told her the attack came from “a random stranger sitting at the bar.”
“He came in and asked, ‘Why are you such a fucking problem?’ and then started stabbing him,” Labutski, an ex-girlfriend of Vindigni, said. “TJ didn’t know this person at all.”
Labutski said witnesses told her the attacker had been sitting at the opposite end of the bar, staring at Vindigni before following him to the restroom.
“He was stabbed in the side of the neck,” she said. “The guy went up toward his ear, all the way up in and then down all the way around to the other side, like a fish.”
The attacker then fled, leaving behind a pair of brass knuckles, a police officer can be heard saying in a video obtained by The Standard. Attempts to reach The Fishbowl’s owners went unanswered.
“I guess the people at the bar tried chasing him, but he still had the knife,” Labutski said.
Officers arrested Hamer on Valencia Street, near where he worked as a bartender at Clooney’s Pub. A representative for Clooney’s said Monday that Hamer was no longer employed there.
Hamer was booked into jail shortly before 9 p.m. Thursday and remains in custody, jail records show.
Representatives of the public defender’s office said they could not comment on Hamer’s case or whether they would be representing him. The district attorney’s office said the case is under review, and no charges had been filed as of Monday morning.
Citywide, violent crimes are down 20% so far this year compared to the same time period last year, SFPD data shows. Last year, 2,322 violent crimes were recorded; that figure stands at 1,872 this year as of June 22.
Hamer’s father, Mike Hamer, said his family is trying to learn more about what happened.
“It appears that somebody was badly hurt, and that horrifies us, if Pat had any role in it,” he said.
Vindigni spent most of last week sedated, unable to eat, swallow, or walk. The Standard reviewed photographs and has seen pictures of the injuries, which show a jagged wound along his neck from under one ear to the other and a second one across his left chest. After undergoing emergency surgery at San Francisco General Hospital, he was placed in intensive care.
Vindigni’s colleagues at The Snug shared word of a GoFundMe campaign to cover medical expenses and lost wages during his recovery. Staff members called him a “truly joyful presence behind the bar and in our community” and have created a cocktail in his honor. The campaign had raised more than $17,000 by publication time.
“At The Snug, we’ve created a fundraiser cocktail called ‘The Big G’ in his honor, with a portion of proceeds going directly to TJ, but we wanted to offer another way for those near and far to support this incredible human,” bar manager Maxwell Salvati wrote.