Vancouver Police officers are shown aiming their guns over the counter of a convenience store in Vancouver on Dec. 4, 2024, in this still taken from eyewitness video.Mainul Islam/The Canadian Press
Vancouver police fired as many as 10 shots inside a downtown convenience store Wednesday afternoon, killing a man who police said had stabbed two people.
Some 16 police cars and officers on horseback converged on the area, which is within sight of BC Place, where Taylor Swift will draw tens of thousands of fans in the days ahead.
Kylie Noel is a bartender who was working at an Original Joe’s pub across the street from the 7-Eleven store where the stabbings occurred. She said a man came into the bar around 11:20 a.m. and stood near the host station. He appeared homeless, was unkempt and mumbled to himself. She said he appeared delusional, agitated and angry.
He asked for water and when she told him she couldn’t serve him if he wasn’t going to buy anything, he yelled at her: “You can’t give me water?”
She said he then walked out and she went into the kitchen. But while she was there, he returned, went behind the bar and took five bottles of bourbon, whisky and rum and two knives, including “a long filet knife I use to cut limes.”
She said that when she saw him behind the bar, she asked him to leave and ran to get the chef. When she returned, the man was guzzling Jim Beam. He was waving a knife and said: “You want to die today?”
Ms. Noel called police and the man left and wandered across the street.
She said she told the police operator that the man was heading into the 7-Eleven, and she said she watched as police arrived across the street. At that point, the man began stabbing people.
Andrew Cecil, who works as a concierge at the Rosedale on Robson, the hotel attached to Original Joe’s, said he saw the man enter the convenience store and go behind the counter. He said he could see a terrified cashier pressed up against the wall while the man waved a knife at her.
Mr. Cecil said he saw another man come from the back room, and he appeared to urge the man to calm down.
But the man started stabbing the cashier, Mr. Cecil said.
Police rushed into the convenience store and Mr. Cecil said officers yelled “drop the knife,” and “step back, step back,” before firing at least two shots from a taser.
“The tasers went off – but didn’t knock him down. Then I heard the gunshots,” Mr. Cecil said.
A video shows police aiming their guns over the counter of a convenience store and firing at least 10 times.
Vancouver Police officers attend a crime scene at a 7-Eleven in Vancouver on Dec. 4, 2024.ETHAN CAIRNS/The Canadian Press
Constable Tania Visintin told a briefing that the suspect died after the incident. Of the two who were wounded, one person was stabbed in the hand while another person suffered facial injuries. Both were treated in hospital and their injuries were not believed to be life-threatening.
Mainul Islam, a student and part-time delivery worker who captured the scene on video, said he was stopped by police from entering the store before witnessing the shooting. He said the man appeared homeless.
Muhammad Uzair, 20, a university student from Pakistan who is studying IT at a school just a block east of the convenience store, also videotaped the altercation and the aftermath. The video shows two people leaving the 7-Eleven on stretchers. The first victim is holding the hand of a paramedic.
Another of his videos shows paramedics administering CPR to a person on a stretcher.
Mr. Uzair said he heard screaming inside the 7-Eleven before people fled the store.
He said it is the second stabbing he has witnessed in the same area after being in Canada for less than a year.
“I’ve never seen that happen in Pakistan,” he said, noting he’s afraid for his safety.
Wednesday’s stabbing, on a sunny afternoon at lunch hour, occurred a short distance from the city’s main library. In September, a 70-year-old man was killed and another had his hand severed after a random knife attack in the same area. A 34-year-old who police described as “very troubled” was later charged with second-degree murder and aggravated assault. The man was on probation at the time of the attacks.
On Thanksgiving Sunday, a woman walking near Vancouver’s cruise-ship terminal was punched and kicked repeatedly in the face by a stranger at 9 a.m. There had been no previous interaction between the attacker and the victim, a 35-year-old tourist, the Vancouver Police Department said.
On Tuesday, Vancouver police asked for the public’s help in identifying a man who lunged at and then punched a random stranger who was walking on the sidewalk in front of the downtown Hudson’s Bay store. The unprovoked assault was caught on video camera and happened in front of people waiting for a bus.
Vancouver Mayor Ken Sim said he is frustrated and angry at the failure by the provincial and federal governments to do something about random violence, often committed by people with serious mental-health issues.
He noted that the provincial government has committed to mandatory care, and he said “we just need to accelerate that time frame.”
He said city officials spoke with counterparts in Ottawa more than two months ago, urging the federal government to enact changes to make bail more difficult to obtain and to support mandatory hospital care for those with severe mental-health issues.
“We haven’t heard from them at all since. Nothing,” said Mr. Sim, who added that he’s “incredibly frustrated” with the lack of action.
By late Wednesday afternoon, Mr. Cecil was back at work behind the hotel concierge desk, looking ashen and shaken but smiling for guests and helping them with luggage.
Original Joe’s closed for the day, with the blinds drawn. Police were using the closed bar to interview witnesses.
With files from The Canadian Press