Kensta
07-31-2008, 01:28 PM
Man stabbed, beheaded on Manitoba bus
'I don't think the guy knew him at all . . . the poor guy, he didn't see it coming'
Gabrielle Giroday and Ian Hitchen , Winnipeg Free Press and Brandon Sun
Published: Thursday, July 31, 2008
BRANDON, Man. - Thirty-six passengers of a Greyhound bus travelling from Edmonton to Winnipeg Wednesday night watched in horror as a fellow passenger stabbed another man sleeping next to him, eventually decapitating him and waving the man's severed head.
The bus made an emergency stop, and passengers fled in terror onto the Trans-Canada Highway near Portage la Prairie, Man., while the bus's driver and a driver of a nearby truck shut the crazed man inside the bus with the victim. Passengers say they stood outside the bus and watched through the window, horrified, as the man disfigured the victim's body.
RCMP have confirmed they are investigating a homicide, although investigators won't provide further details about how a young man was stabbed to death and then decapitated.
A suspect was taken into custody by the RCMP and arrested without incident, said Sgt. Brian Edmonds in a statement Thursday. He said the RCMP's serious crimes unit is investigating a homicide. The names of the victim and the suspect have not been released.
Public Safety Minister Stockwell Day, speaking in Quebec City said the issue of safety on buses may need to be examined more closely once the legal process of this case is over.
"We're never closed to looking at how Canadians can be more safe and more secure," Day told reporters in Quebec Thursday. This particular incident as horrific as it is, is obviously extremely rare."
Day offered his condolences to the family and said he was horrified by the event.
Witnesses described a nightmarish scene inside the bus.
"He didn't do anything to provoke the guy. The guy just took a knife out and stabbed him, started stabbing him like crazy and cut his head off," said Garnet Caton, 36, a passenger.
Caton and others said once they escaped the bus, they prevented the attacker from getting off the bus by threatening him with makeshift weapons - a hammer and a metal bar.
"We were telling him, 'Stay put, stay put, stay there, don't try to come out.' He tried to get the bus working and the bus driver disabled the bus somehow in the back, I'm not sure how he did it, and at that point, I think the police showed up," he said, adding officers rushed them away.
"Some people were puking, some people were crying, other people were in shock . . . everybody was running, screaming off the bus."
Caton described the man who attacked the passenger as about six feet tall, 200 pounds, with a bald head and wearing sunglasses. He seemed oblivious to others when the stabbing occurred, said Caton.
Caton said he was struck by how calm the man was. He just walked up to the front of the bus and dropped the head, Caton said.
Caton said the victim boarded in Edmonton, was Aboriginal in appearance, and was wearing hip-hop clothing, and appeared to be a young man around 20 years of age.
"When we saw the head, we knew he was dead," he said. "I don't think the guy knew him at all. I think he was really crazy . . . the poor guy, he didn't see it coming."
Two yellow school buses were brought in to the closed-off stretch of highway for passengers to sit in while the standoff between officers and the man inside the bus proceeded for hours.
The passengers were later taken to Brandon, Man., to be interviewed by police and to stay overnight at a hotel there. Some will be resuming their trips later Thursday.
Crisis counsellors were also at the hotel to provide support to the passengers, and counsellors could be seen chatting with them outside the hotel as groups went out to local stores for snacks or to smoke cigarettes.
One small boy, who was with an adult man and woman, was given a plush teddy bear by a crisis health worker.
Another young man from Nova Scotia sat outside the Brandon hotel smoking around 3 a.m. Visibly shaken, he said RCMP had taken 36 witnesses in for questioning into a detachment approximately 100 kilometres east. He said later: "I felt bad that all the young people and old people had to see that."
The man, who did not want his name used, said the victim of the stabbing had been sleeping before the attack.
Other passengers said that the two men were sitting at the rear of the bus and the stabbing victim was listening to music through his headphones. The men were both sitting in the back of the bus, and the attack appeared to be unprovoked.
"The first thing I heard was something like a terrible type (of) yowl and that was from the guy who got stabbed," said an elderly woman on the bus, from Winnipeg.
The woman and her adult daughter said they were three or four rows in front of the suspect when the attack began.
"(My daughter said) 'Oh my God' and everybody else started screaming," she said. "They had terror in their eyes."
Passengers said there was a rush of people toward the front of the bus to get off.
Two other passengers on the bus, a 22-year-old man and 21-year-old woman, from France, said they were heading to Winnipeg after visiting the woman's father in Whitehorse. The 22-year-old man said in French that he saw a man holding a long knife repeatedly stab another passenger. He and his girlfriend said they were shocked by the attack, and the isolation in the middle of the prairies when it occurred.
"There was nowhere to go," she said.
Greyhound spokesman Eric Wesley said counselling will be provided and monetary compensation will be determined on an individual basis.
"We are going to do whatever we need to provide the passengers with counselling or any other measures to make sure they're taken care of," he said Thursday.
http://www.canada.com/topics/news/story.html?id=7886faf4-e8e9-4217-ac1d-66563d16ec9f
'I don't think the guy knew him at all . . . the poor guy, he didn't see it coming'
Gabrielle Giroday and Ian Hitchen , Winnipeg Free Press and Brandon Sun
Published: Thursday, July 31, 2008
BRANDON, Man. - Thirty-six passengers of a Greyhound bus travelling from Edmonton to Winnipeg Wednesday night watched in horror as a fellow passenger stabbed another man sleeping next to him, eventually decapitating him and waving the man's severed head.
The bus made an emergency stop, and passengers fled in terror onto the Trans-Canada Highway near Portage la Prairie, Man., while the bus's driver and a driver of a nearby truck shut the crazed man inside the bus with the victim. Passengers say they stood outside the bus and watched through the window, horrified, as the man disfigured the victim's body.
RCMP have confirmed they are investigating a homicide, although investigators won't provide further details about how a young man was stabbed to death and then decapitated.
A suspect was taken into custody by the RCMP and arrested without incident, said Sgt. Brian Edmonds in a statement Thursday. He said the RCMP's serious crimes unit is investigating a homicide. The names of the victim and the suspect have not been released.
Public Safety Minister Stockwell Day, speaking in Quebec City said the issue of safety on buses may need to be examined more closely once the legal process of this case is over.
"We're never closed to looking at how Canadians can be more safe and more secure," Day told reporters in Quebec Thursday. This particular incident as horrific as it is, is obviously extremely rare."
Day offered his condolences to the family and said he was horrified by the event.
Witnesses described a nightmarish scene inside the bus.
"He didn't do anything to provoke the guy. The guy just took a knife out and stabbed him, started stabbing him like crazy and cut his head off," said Garnet Caton, 36, a passenger.
Caton and others said once they escaped the bus, they prevented the attacker from getting off the bus by threatening him with makeshift weapons - a hammer and a metal bar.
"We were telling him, 'Stay put, stay put, stay there, don't try to come out.' He tried to get the bus working and the bus driver disabled the bus somehow in the back, I'm not sure how he did it, and at that point, I think the police showed up," he said, adding officers rushed them away.
"Some people were puking, some people were crying, other people were in shock . . . everybody was running, screaming off the bus."
Caton described the man who attacked the passenger as about six feet tall, 200 pounds, with a bald head and wearing sunglasses. He seemed oblivious to others when the stabbing occurred, said Caton.
Caton said he was struck by how calm the man was. He just walked up to the front of the bus and dropped the head, Caton said.
Caton said the victim boarded in Edmonton, was Aboriginal in appearance, and was wearing hip-hop clothing, and appeared to be a young man around 20 years of age.
"When we saw the head, we knew he was dead," he said. "I don't think the guy knew him at all. I think he was really crazy . . . the poor guy, he didn't see it coming."
Two yellow school buses were brought in to the closed-off stretch of highway for passengers to sit in while the standoff between officers and the man inside the bus proceeded for hours.
The passengers were later taken to Brandon, Man., to be interviewed by police and to stay overnight at a hotel there. Some will be resuming their trips later Thursday.
Crisis counsellors were also at the hotel to provide support to the passengers, and counsellors could be seen chatting with them outside the hotel as groups went out to local stores for snacks or to smoke cigarettes.
One small boy, who was with an adult man and woman, was given a plush teddy bear by a crisis health worker.
Another young man from Nova Scotia sat outside the Brandon hotel smoking around 3 a.m. Visibly shaken, he said RCMP had taken 36 witnesses in for questioning into a detachment approximately 100 kilometres east. He said later: "I felt bad that all the young people and old people had to see that."
The man, who did not want his name used, said the victim of the stabbing had been sleeping before the attack.
Other passengers said that the two men were sitting at the rear of the bus and the stabbing victim was listening to music through his headphones. The men were both sitting in the back of the bus, and the attack appeared to be unprovoked.
"The first thing I heard was something like a terrible type (of) yowl and that was from the guy who got stabbed," said an elderly woman on the bus, from Winnipeg.
The woman and her adult daughter said they were three or four rows in front of the suspect when the attack began.
"(My daughter said) 'Oh my God' and everybody else started screaming," she said. "They had terror in their eyes."
Passengers said there was a rush of people toward the front of the bus to get off.
Two other passengers on the bus, a 22-year-old man and 21-year-old woman, from France, said they were heading to Winnipeg after visiting the woman's father in Whitehorse. The 22-year-old man said in French that he saw a man holding a long knife repeatedly stab another passenger. He and his girlfriend said they were shocked by the attack, and the isolation in the middle of the prairies when it occurred.
"There was nowhere to go," she said.
Greyhound spokesman Eric Wesley said counselling will be provided and monetary compensation will be determined on an individual basis.
"We are going to do whatever we need to provide the passengers with counselling or any other measures to make sure they're taken care of," he said Thursday.
http://www.canada.com/topics/news/story.html?id=7886faf4-e8e9-4217-ac1d-66563d16ec9f