OMG! Did you hear about this on the news?

[melwru]

I watching the news and this was the top story. Really scary and so sad! I cant believe it happened. Its like something from a movie....

 

Thursday, July 31, 2008

 

BRANDON, Man. - Screaming passengers fled in terror from a Greyhound bus as an unidentified fellow passenger suddenly stabbed a man sleeping next to him, decapitated him and waved the severed head at horrified witnesses standing outside.

 

The apparently unprovoked assault left 36 men, women and children stranded Wednesday night on the shoulder of the darkening Trans-Canada Highway near Portage la Prairie, Man., about 85 kilometres west of Winnipeg, watching while the bus driver and a driver of a nearby truck shut the crazed attacker inside the bus with the mangled victim.

 

At a media conference Thursday afternoon, RCMP confirmed they have the suspect in custody, but offered few new details on this baffling homicide.

 

"By the time the police arrived, the driver and the remaining passengers had all safely exited the bus," said Sgt. Steve Colwell.

 

He said officers could see the suspect walking around inside the bus, but said he refused to exit. The standoff lasted for hours.

 

"At 1:28 a.m., the suspect . . . attempted to jump out of the bus after breaking a window. He was immediately subdued and arrested without incident and is currently in RCMP custody."

 

The names of the victim and the suspect have not been released.

 

"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, 26, a passenger on the Edmonton-to-Winnipeg bus.

 

"Some people were puking, some people were crying, other people were in shock . . . everybody was running, screaming off the bus."

 

Caton said the attacker was only on the bus for a brief period of time, after boarding in western Manitoba.

 

Witnesses described a nightmarish scene inside the bus.

 

"Everybody got off the bus. Me and a trucker that stopped and the Greyhound driver ran up to the door to maybe see if the guy was still alive or we could help or something like that," Caton told CNN.

 

"And when we all got up, we saw that the guy was cutting off the guy's head. . . . When he saw us, he came back to the front of the bus, told the driver to shut the door. He pressed the button and the door shut, but it didn't shut in time, and the guy was able to get his knife out and take a swipe at us.

 

"He hadn't got off the bus, and the door was still open . . . he started walking to the front of the bus with the head in his hand and he just looked at us like this - and dropped it on the ground, totally calm . . .

 

"I got sick after I saw the head thing."

 

Caton said he and other passengers prevented the attacker from getting off by threatening him with makeshift weapons - a hammer and a crowbar.

 

"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.

 

Caton and other passengers said the attacker and his victim, who was listening to music on headphones, were sitting together at the rear of the bus, and the attack appeared to be unprovoked - no words were exchanged.

 

Caton described the man who attacked the passenger as about six feet tall, 200 pounds, possibly Asian or aboriginal, bald and wearing sunglasses. He seemed oblivious to others when the stabbing occurred, said Caton, adding he was struck by how calm the man was.

 

Caton said the victim boarded in Edmonton, was aboriginal in appearance, was wearing hip-hop clothing and appeared to be 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."

 

The passengers were later taken to Brandon, Man., to be interviewed by police and to stay overnight at a hotel there.

 

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.

 

"I felt bad that all the young people and old people had to see that," he said.

 

"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."

 

Speaking in Quebec City, Public Safety Minister Stockwell Day 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 on Thursday. "This particular incident, as horrific as it is, is obviously extremely rare."

 

Greyhound spokesman Eric Wesley, speaking from Texas, said drivers are trained to get help as soon as they can when incidents occur.

 

"This is very rare, unique occurrence. Bus transportation is one of the safest modes of transportation. This is highly unique that something like this happened," he said. "Our drivers are trained to provide the safest travel for all our passengers, and every time an incident occurs they know to pull the bus over and call 911."

 

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 prairie when it occurred.

 

"There was nowhere to go," she said.

 

The Greyhound bus spokesman 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

 

 

 

 

My heart goes out to all of the passengers on the bus, to the innocent victim and of course his family! What a terrible random act of violence.

[LadyP]

nothing showed up

[JennyK]

yea I heard about this.. SICK SICK SICK individual.

[melwru]

I'm trying to fix the link.

[Kryztan]

Ill tell you what, there are some NASTY people out there!!!!!!!!

[sunset78]

Yes, everyone at work was talking about this.

 

I wouldn't want to imagine being in that situation.

[alex]

Makes me neaseous, especially since I used to take the Greyhound all the time. Not that it'd the actual Greyhound that's scary, but you know what I mean.

I literally almost threw up when I read about this today. I can't even imagine what the other passengers are going through right now...

[kevsgirl]

I hadn't and that was just sick. It's totally like a movie. I can't believe it.

I wonder if they knew eachother at all or if it was totally random.

 

It is so surprising up in Canada too

 

First the bird in the mailbox (in my city) and now the beheading.

[Angel]

Wow, that is sick. People do some crazy mess.

[RaydensMama]

I just saw this on the news tonight and couldnt believe it. Its pretty scary to think that something like that could happen.