Argument over missing $4 ends with three stabbed on South Boston street

A dispute over a few dollars in a South Boston apartment spilled into the street early Sunday and ended with three people hauled away to local hospitals with stab wounds, police say.

A police report details the incident, which ended at K and E. 3rd St. shortly after midnight, but which started inside an apartment at 560 E. 2 St. There, police report, two homeless people whose friend had agreed to put them up for the night got out of the shower to find $4 they said they had left on a table missing.

An argument with the friend over the money was loud enough to awaken another resident, asleep at the time, who got up and escorted the two homeless people downstairs. There, police say, the argument continued and started moving down the street. Knives were drawn, blood was spilled and one passerby kicked a bloody knife into the middle of the street to keep the brawlers from using it again.

According to the report, one of the combatants told an officer "he stabbed my girl, so I had to stab him." However, police encountered difficulty in determining who the aggressor was because by the time officers could talk to them, they were in hospitals - one at Tufts, two at Mass. General - and being treated with painkillers.