photo by: Kim Callahan/Journal-World

A Lawrence Police Department patrol vehicle is pictured June 28, 2022.

A 39-year-old homeless man has been charged with two felonies after allegedly cutting another man with a knife Tuesday in downtown Lawrence.

The man, Dau Cuiebet Jok, was taken into custody shortly before 9 p.m. in the 700 block of Vermont Street, where police had been dispatched to a disturbance with weapons. Responding officers quickly detained a potential suspect and worked to get a statement from a man with a cut on his finger, police spokeswoman Laura McCabe said in an email. A witness told police that the suspect and the injured man had been in a physical altercation prior to officers’ arrival.

“It appears the suspect pulled out a knife during the fight, swung it around and threatened several people,” McCabe said. “It’s our understanding that the man’s hand was injured while trying to block an attack.”

Lawrence-Douglas County Fire Medical responders treated the victim at the scene, McCabe said.

On Wednesday, Jok, who is listed as “homeless” on the Douglas County Jail booking log, was charged with aggravated battery and felony criminal threat. He was scheduled to appear in court Wednesday afternoon.

It appears from court records that Jok had been released earlier this month on a $1,500 own recognizance bond related to a case filed in March in which he was charged with three counts of felony criminal threat and two counts of misdemeanor battery stemming from a January incident.