Three passersby came to the rescue of an East Vancouver shopkeeper who was attacked by a knife-wielding masked man on the night of Sept. 7.
The 23-year-old woman was leaving work in the Mount Pleasant neighbourhood shortly before 9 p.m. when a man carrying a knife and whose face was concealed grabbed her from behind and threatened to stab her, said the Vancouver Police Department in a
news release.
As she called out for help, the man pulled her into a lane.
A passerby immediately flagged down two men in a car, and the three began yelling at the suspect until he released the victim and fled.
“Three total strangers acted bravely and decisively when a fellow citizen was in danger, and in doing so they stopped this violent crime in progress,” said Sgt. Steve Addison in the statement.
“We are grateful to these three men for their quick thinking, and for the actions they took to help someone in need.”
One of the Good Samaritans called 911, and more than 30 police officers arrived at the scene. They collected evidence and began to search for the suspect.
The victim did not suffer serious injuries, according to police. She was taken to the hospital and is recovering.
At around 10:30 p.m., police Crime Watch volunteers who were patrolling near South Memorial Park spotted a suspect in a vehicle. Police took the man into custody and identified him as a 56-year-old man who frequented the area where the attack occurred.
Weapon Offences and Robbery Rates
The rate of assaults committed with a weapon or causing bodily harm has risen across the country, to 84,763 incidents reported in 2023 (up 7,576 or more than 7 percent from 2022). The rate is up 61 percent from 2013, according to
Statistics Canada.
Robbery rates rose 4 percent in 2023–an increase for the second year in a row–but the rate was 5 percent lower than in 2019 and
11 percent lower than in 2013, according to
the agency.
Data on the use of knives as weapons is scarce, although some of the most recent
StatCan data from 2008 showed knives, not firearms, were the most common weapon in violent crime.
In Vancouver, crimes involving offensive weapons more than doubled between 2015 and 2020, rising from
437 to
972, according to Vancouver Police Department data. The number of incidents then declined in the following two years, reaching 622 cases in 2022, and increased again in 2023 to 733 cases.
