LOCAL : Valley Homeless Man Stabs Self

A 44-year-old homeless man was critically injured this morning when he apparently stabbed himself in the parking lot of a Northridge police station where he had spent the night, authorities said.

The man, whose name was not released, was taken to Holy Cross Medical Center in Mission Hills after being found at 6:50 a.m. in the parking lot behind the Devonshire Division station at Etiwanda Avenue and Devonshire Street, Detective Michael Brandt said.

Brandt said the man was found on the ground next to his car by a police officer arriving for work. The injured man had a knife in his throat, Brandt said.

Brandt said the incident was being investigated as a suicide attempt.

The man walked into the lobby of the police station at 1 a.m. and asked an officer if he could stay until morning, when he had an appointment at a nearby psychiatrist’s office, Brandt said. The officer allowed him to stay.

“The officer gave him a newspaper and he sat in the lobby and read it” until morning, Brandt said. “He seemed to be OK. There was no indication at the time that any thing was wrong, that he was upset or suicidal.”

The man left the station at 6:30 a.m. and was found in the parking lot 20 minutes later.

Brandt said this morning that police have not found the psychiatrist the man said he was going to see. Police also had not been able to find the man’s family.