Oceanside police responded to a call from Avenida Marguarita.

Jose Alexander Rivera Hernandez said he had another dispute with his wife three weeks ago, on June 29, which ended with their children holding onto their mother while he phoned police.

Hernandez said he has been with his wife Mayra Perez for about 20 years. They have two children with whom they live, a 17-year-old daughter and 13-year-old son. The family lives in a home in the 200 block of Avenida Marguarita in Oceanside.

Hernandez had apparently moved his things out of that home two weeks before the incident. He said when he came back to the house to get a mattress he wanted, he and his wife began to argue. And then “She started to throw things.” Hernandez said he tried to escape. “I did try to leave, but because she was angry she got in front of me, and that’s when she started throwing things.” First there came the remote control, and then several glass coasters. A policeman who responded to the scene said he found broken glass throughout the living room and hallway and in the doorways of two bedrooms.

Oceanside police officer Christian Kelly said he found the husband bleeding from a wound on the back of his head, so he called for paramedics.

Hernandez said the cut on the back of his head was caused when one of the glass coaster missiles smashed on the wall behind him and shards of broken glass hit him. Hernandez claimed that he was able to avoid direct hits from his wife’s throws: “Yes, was moving.”

It was when Mayra Perez picked up a seven-inch kitchen knife, which had been used for peeling some fruit, that her children jumped in to hold her. The airborne knife missed Dad, he

said, and that was when he took the chance to phone for help. “So that things could calm down,” Mr. Rivera Hernandez explained.

Hernandez said that police had been called to their home two years earlier, in 2015, and he admitted there were allegations at that time that he had struck his wife. Mayra Aide Perez is described in Sheriff’s records as 5 foot 3 inches tall and 142 pounds.

Mayra Aide Perez, 39, was in court pleading not guilty to felony assault charges on July 17, 2017, which happens to be her birthday.