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And the surveillance camera that should have provided crucial evidence to police? Broken.
Hatim Mansori, 11, was taking the 49 bus home from Marina Middle School on Tuesday, when a man stabbed him in the stomach in an unexpected and unprovoked attack.
"Then I started screaming, shouting really loud, and then lots of people helped me," Hatim said.
Witnesses told police the attacker was 6 feet 2 inches tall, around 180 pounds, African American with a torn sweater.
"I think he was just crazy," Hatim said.
The man jumped off the bus at the corner of 19th and Mission streets and escaped.
The single stab wound cut Hatim's intestines and punctured his liver. He was taken to nearby San Francisco General Hospital, where it took 30 staples to close the wound.
The family is still reeling from the attack.
"I am still shocked till you know today because it's a very disturbing story to hear that an 11-year-old was attacked by an old male in his 20s or his 30s and for no reason," Hatim's brother Abdessalam Mansori said.
To make matters worse, the surveillance camera at the back of the bus that should have caught the attack on video was broken.
Abdessalam says /*Muni*/ needs to do a better job making sure its cameras work.
"It doesn't have to take a case like my brother's case to fix things, I mean, it should be fixed already," Abdessalam said.
"I don't think I would go to the bus, to the back of the bus anymore, because that's where all the people, bad people go," Hatim said.
It turns out one of the city's crime cameras captured the suspect after he left the bus, but police say the image is too fuzzy to be of much use. Police are asking anyone with information to call 415-575-4444.
LINK: City surveillance cameras "see no evil"
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