Polo Park store clerk stabbed in neck while trying to stop thief

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This article was published 22/03/2019 (2697 days ago), so information in it may no longer be current.

A Polo Park store clerk trying to stop a shoplifter was stabbed in the neck in a shocking flash of violence Thursday evening that left witnesses traumatized.

The 19-year-old Foot Locker employee was taken to hospital in unstable condition, but later upgraded to stable. He and two other staff — a man and a woman — were attempting to stop a male suspect from leaving the athletic wear retail store with several articles of clothing. He attacked one and tried to flee, but another employee held him until police arrived.

Winnipeg police said officers arrested a 17-year-old suspect at about 8:30 p.m.

“It was senseless; it was a senseless act,” said customer Melvina Guiboche, 33, who was in the store with her husband, Dakotah, and saw the attack, which occurred about a half-hour before closing.

“This poor guy who was the victim — he was only 19 and probably this was just an after-school job. To just go to work and have something like that happen, it hurt my heart,” she said Friday. “It moved so fast. All of a sudden, we saw an arm come up.”

Guiboche said 911 was called, and she stepped in to try to help the victim.

“It all happened so fast, and was very traumatizing. The young man who got injured was really scared. He was so dazed and confused,” she said.

“I’m an associate pastor at a local church in Winnipeg, so immediately I walked up to him and introduced myself. He was bleeding from the neck and I just asked him if I could pray for him. Me and my husband both prayed with him and tried to calm him.”

Someone handed the injured man a cloth to hold on his neck to stanch the bleeding.

“It was pretty deep and it looked pretty vicious. There was a lot of blood everywhere,” Guiboche said.

Dakotah Guiboche said he, too, also a pastor, so he and his wife stayed to comfort people and to provide police with witness statements.

“The store employees were brave” he said, adding he also saw the weapon used in the attack: a knife with a blade that did not appear to fold down. “They said people try to steal all the time and they usually catch them and stop them. This time, it went from a simple bust to extreme violence in a matter of seconds.

“(The suspect) made a run for it to the main entrance, and one of the employees, the 19-year-old, was standing there and the suspect came running, took a jump and took a high swing… I thought he just punched him in the neck. But the 19-year-old got him on the ground and then he stood up and said, ‘I just got stabbed,’ and there was blood everywhere.”

Despite the injury, the employee wrestled the suspect to the ground, and a store manager held down the suspect until police arrived, witnesses said.

“The other employees were getting scared because their fellow employee just got stabbed in the neck. One of them got the first aid kit to get something to put pressure on the wound,” Dakotah Guiboche said.

“While this was going on, the manager was holding down the suspect. Then finally, (mall) security showed up but security didn’t do anything. Security didn’t help the manager detain the suspect at all. They blocked off the entrance for no people coming into the store, but the manager was saying to them, ‘Can you help me here? I want to help my friend; he just got stabbed.'”

Melvina Guiboche said it was a chaotic scene, until police and paramedics arrived.

“Everyone was all over the place and just terrified. Everyone that was there, fear just came upon them… One (employee) had a panic attack. It was just a very traumatic experience,” she said.

The suspect has been charged with robbery, aggravated assault and possessing a weapon.

ashley.prest@freepress.mb.ca