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View Full Version : WTH!??? I'm moving to New York where it's safer



Kenny
07/31/2008, 03:46 PM
This is waaaaay too close to home -
What do you do? How will these people be the same?
I'm freaking out myself knowing it happened an hour away from where I live.



Winnipeg RCMP say they don't know what prompted vicious attack on Greyhound bus

RCMP officers investigate a "major incident" that occured on a Greyhound bus Thursday morning, July 31, 2008 about 18km west of Portage La Prairie, Man.

THE CANADIAN PRESS/John Woods
Steve Lambert, THE CANADIAN PRESS

WINNIPEG - Police said Thursday they didn't know what prompted a passenger on a Greyhound bus heading to Winnipeg to viciously attack the man sitting next to him.

Passengers said the man repeatedly stabbed his seat-mate before beheading him and carrying the victim's head around the bus.

RCMP Staff Sgt. Steve Colwell wouldn't confirm those details, but did say a 40-year-old suspect was in RCMP custody and police were planning to interview him.

No charges were immediately laid.

Colwell said the behaviour of the passengers and driver probably prevented anyone else from being hurt.

"It's not something that happens regularly on a bus," he said. "You're sitting there enjoying your trip and then all of a sudden somebody gets stabbed. I imagine it would be pretty traumatic ... the way they acted was extraordinary."

Colwell said they "were very brave. They reacted swiftly, calmly in exiting the bus and as a result nobody else was injured."

Shocked passengers described the horrific attack as something incomprehensible.

One moment, the quiet man near the back of the bus was minding his own business. The man hadn't talked to anyone around him, and seemed to pay no attention to the younger fellow sitting next to him, who was listening to music on headphones.

The next moment, witnesses said, the older man stood up, still quiet, and repeatedly stabbed, then beheaded his younger victim.

"We heard this blood-curdling scream and turned around, and the guy was standing up, stabbing this guy repeatedly, like 40 or 50 times," Garnet Caton said Thursday from a hotel in Brandon, Man., where he and other passengers had been taken to rest.

"There was no rage or anything. He was like a robot, stabbing the guy."

Caton said the bus stopped and everyone scrambled to get out while the attacker started methodically carving up the victim's body, not paying attention to anyone else.

Caton and the driver shut the bus door from the outside while they waited for police to arrive.

"We put our bodies up against the door, waiting for him to come out ... and he went back and brought the head to the front and pretty much displayed it ... and dropped it on the ground in front of us," Caton said.

"All very calmly. He was wearing sunglasses. It was no big deal to him."

Fellow passenger Cody Olmstead from Kentville, N.S., also recalled the chilling scene.

"The guy came to the front of the door with buddy's head in his hands, decapitated. He dropped the head and went back and started cutting the body back up," Olmstead said.

When police arrived, the victim and his attacker were the only ones left on the bus, Colwell said.

"When attempts were made to have him exit and surrender to police were unsuccessful, additional resources including the RCMP emergency response team and negotiator team were called in to assist."

The man eventually tried to flee by breaking a bus window and jumping out, Colwell said.

"He was immediately subdued and arrested without incident and is currently in RCMP custody."

Both Olmstead and Caton said the attacker and the victim appeared not to know each other.

They said the attacker boarded the bus in Brandon Wednesday night. The victim, who Caton said appeared to be about 19, had been on the bus since Edmonton.

Police would not confirm the victim's age and said his name would not be released until his family had been notified. The suspect's name wasn't released either.

Federal Public Safety Minister Stockwell Day said the full weight of the law must be brought to bear on the perpetrator.

"We want to make sure the process is followed as aggressively as possible, the full legal process ...." Day said from Levis, Que., where Conservative MPs are gathered for a summer planning session.

"This particular incident, as horrific as it is, is obviously extremely rare. Certainly the horrific nature of it is probably one-of-a-kind in Canadian history."

Greyhound called the event tragic but isolated.

A company spokeswoman said bus travel is the safest mode of transportation, despite the fact bus stations do not have metal detectors and other security measures used at airports.

"Due to the rural nature of our network, airport-type security is not practical. It's a very different type of system," Abby Wambaugh said from Greyhound's corporate offices in Texas.

The bus was carrying 37 passengers and the driver to Winnipeg from Edmonton.

A portion of the east-bound Trans-Canada Highway was closed overnight as officers remained on the scene.

Passengers had not explanation either as to what might have prompted the attack. The suspect had been on the bus for only about an hour and didn't even sit near his victim at first.

"He sat in the front at first, everything was normal," Caton said.

"We went to the next stop and he got off and had a smoke with another young lady there. When he got on the bus again, he came to the back near where I was sitting.

"He put his bags in the overhead compartment. He didn't say a word to anybody. He seemed totally normal. About a half an hour later, we heard this blood-curdling scream."


© The Canadian Press , 2008

kodiak
07/31/2008, 04:56 PM
Relax! What are the odds, it’s just another random psychopath.

Ldub
07/31/2008, 08:04 PM
Dayum Dude, I thought we were far enough north to keep out the riff-raff...:rolleyesg

Stupid summer heat...:cool:, I can't wait to complain about -30 weather again...:_snowplow

twistedsymphony
08/01/2008, 05:17 AM
that's F-ed up... but yeah, total psychopath, very rare, and it doesn't matter where you live (though statistically the more dense the population the higher probability of running into one... meaning NYC aint all that safe)...

the breed of degenerates in most cities is far more scary than that... because they KNOW what they're doing... this guy was obviously off his rocker.

tom4bren
08/01/2008, 05:28 AM
"this guy was obviously off his rocker."

Not neccessarily. He may have been after the "blaze of glory" effect - it worked.

nfpgasmask
08/01/2008, 08:12 AM
You never know, he could easily be some psycho on the run who just couldn't resist one more kill. I bet they find out this dude has killed before, and is wanted elsewhere...interesting story.

Bart

etlsport
08/01/2008, 09:44 AM
yea.. stuff like this is always upsetting/disturbing

i remember like 6-9 months ago in philadelphia a guy was driving down the street and a 15 year old biker was in front of him apparently not going fast enough, after honking the horn once, the driver gets out of the car, shoots the bike rider and drives around him.. lucky enough the driver wasnt smart enough to realize there was a police car following him

nfpgasmask
08/01/2008, 11:14 AM
This morning, a guy I work with was driving to the office (45 minute drive for him). A guy in a electric company truck got pissed at him for not letting him merge into his lane. So he followed him down the interstate for the entire 45 minutes... took the exit to my office... then sped past the guy, slammed on the brakes in front of him, got out of the truck and started wailing on the guy I work with right in front of our office as he sat in his car! The guy floored it, hit the truck, and sped off to call the cops. This was that guys 4th time being busted for road rage! :eek:

That's funny. I had that happen to me once on the south side of Chicago. My own rage level was high to begin with, and I must have pissed of the guy behind me as I battled my way through the rush hour traffic, and he started tailgating us and followed us all the way to my exit, 30 miles away. Once I got off the highway, I was 100% certain he was following me. For obvious reasons I was most certainly not going to drive home (don't need people like that knowing where I live) so I drove around the neighborhood for a minute, the whole time, he followed and my wife is screaming at me cause I was ready to stop the car and throw down, but she like, "what if he has a gun, etc etc". So ultimately, I drive right up to the front door of the local police station, stop the car and at that point he finally stops following us and drives on.

Road rage is serious.

Bart