As the city of Rochester nears a full year in a state of emergency due to raising violence, one man feels lucky to be alive, 10 years after being stabbed more than 15 times.
“I was just running just to get away from the situation and as I stopped, I remember looking down and that’s when I realized that, ‘I’m hurt, I’m injured, I’m covered in blood,’” Hassan Williams said.
Now 25, Williams recalled the ordeal after recently celebrating 10 years of life since his attack.
“May 2, 2013, I was stabbed over 16 times,” Williams said. “I was stabbed in my heart, in both of my lungs, which are the three major organs basically, and I was expected to have, I wasn’t expected to live.”
Williams was 15 years old and taking the bus home from fundraising for an AP class trip, when he was approached by a man that appeared angry. Williams says it wasn’t long before he was searching for the survival skills he had yet to learn at such a young age.
“Honestly, in my life, in my 25 years of living, I’ve never been put in a situation where I had to fight for my life or I had to come up with a way to figure out how am I going to make this, how am I going to make it out alive, or how am I going to make it home?”
The man stabbed Williams over 16 times in his heart, both of his lungs and his upper torso.
“I used every last breath, every last ounce of being in me just to be able to sustain life and to continue,” Williams said. “Just because I can give you a real answer at this time, but just because I know I wanted to live.”
His attacker served five years in jail. Williams remembered questions of gang-involvement flooded his family at the time, but he said the attack was unmotivated.
“It was just a complete act, of just complete random, just complete randomness honestly," he said. "And that randomness has given me so much strength."
Williams is a Rochester native who’s spent most of his life volunteering in the community he calls home.
“Rochester is home for me,” he said. “When I travel to other places, I’m always reminded of why I haven’t relocated yet because this is where home is.”
Throughout the years, he’s watched his home become increasingly violent. Now, the city of Rochester approaches a year in a state of emergency due to an increase in violent crime. More than half way through 2023, it’s an initiative that Mayor Malik Evans is proud to say has helped decrease the number of homicides from this point last year. However, Williams believes there will be a long road ahead for his community to heal.
“Honestly, it scares me and it doesn’t scare me because of crime,” he said. “I think I’m taking it a little bit further now because it’s the transition that we have to go through is the transition that the people have to go through after coming out of so much trauma and pain.”
Williams says he learned to forgive his attacker early after his incident. He encourages the community to have open conversations with loved ones to help them overcome the trauma they’ve all endured.
“We can say we need to do this and this needs to be done or give explain all of the tools and resources,” he said. “Once we get on the same page and on the same track of thriving and growing together and adapting to change and being willing to accept change and impatient and understand that all great things take time.”
Now, Williams lives by his new motto: H.O.P.E. -- Hold On, Pain Ends.
“I know the fight is hard and it’s troubling and it’s so uncomfortable, but if we hold on a little bit, a little while longer, that pain is going to end,” he said. “I’m not a victim, I’m a survivor.”