Pictured: The college graduate, 21, fighting for his life after 'random stabbing attack' in Santa Rosa movie theater as he watched new Blake Lively film

 

 Adam Lucero(Right)

 The California college graduate who was stabbed repeatedly in the neck in a 'random' cinema attack tried to fight off his assailant, his brother has revealed.

Adam Lucero, 21, or Pasadena, California, was watching The Shallows at the Roxy Theater when the man sitting behind him began stabbing him with a chef's knife.

Lucero - was left with a punctured lung and injuries to his neck, arm and ear - is in a heavily sedated state in hospital following a lengthy surgery.

His attacker Delonte Hart, 23, who is also suspected to have stabbed a homeless man to death this week, was arrested minutes after the assault and has since

been charged with attempted murder.

Lucero's brother Michael told of how he fought back as Hart repeatedly thrust the blade into his throat around 30 minutes into the movie, starring Blake Lively.

'Doctors said all his major arteries were missed and his voice box wasn’t hit,' Michael told the Press Democrat. 

He added: 'When you’re watching a movie, you’re so vulnerable. I think he hit the guy and caused him to run off.

'To continue to fight the guy, which I think he did, that’s incredible.'

Hart walked out of the theater lobby after throwing a knife in a trash can outside the auditorium. 

People in the nearly empty theater rushed to help the victim, who was conscious but taken to the hospital with life-threatening injuries. 

Authorities said the stabbing appeared to be unprovoked and it has been classified as 'random'. A weapon, which Navarro described as a 'large kitchen knife', was recovered from the scene.

Hart appeared 'calm and nonchalant' at the time of his arrest, according to Sgt Josh Ludtke.

In court on Friday, Hart was charged with felony attempted murder and assault with a deadly weapon, and ordered to return for a formal arraignment on July 8.

His bail was doubled to $2million because of the 'public safety risk that he poses', the judge said.

Hart is homeless and has only been in the Santa Rosa area for about four months, police said. He is originally from Baltimore, Maryland.  

Chief Deputy District Attorney Spencer Brady refused to say if he would be charged with the murder of another homeless man Cirak Tesfazgi, 32.

Tesfazgi, a Santa Rosa High School graduate, was found dead in a doorway in Riley Street, Santa Rosa, where he sometimes slept rough.

Police thought Hart as a 'person of interest' in his killing but he has not been arrested in connection to the death. 

Authorities said Hart had recently been arrested for being drunk in public.It is not yet known if he was under the influence of drugs or alcohol at the time of the theater stabbing. 

Detectives are now asking the public to help learn more about Hart's recent activities and whereabouts to see if he was involved in any other violent crimes, Navarro told Daily Mail Online.  

'Based on the randomness of the act, the brutality of the act, certainly he's a person we're looking into as a suspect,' Ludtke said of the 23-year-old. 

The two-story movie theater's entire upstairs was closed for the rest of the night on Wednesday so that police could collect evidence. 

It was expected to be fully open on Thursday.