‘I really thought I was going to die in there,’ cat owner says after armed intruder bursts into vet clinic

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This article was published 17/11/2023 (751 days ago), so information in it may no longer be current.

Jennifer Laferriere thought she was going to die when she heard an employee tell the 911 operator that the man causing chaos in the veterinary clinic had a knife.

Laferriere arrived at the Animal Hospital of Manitoba at 995 Main St. at about 9:40 a.m. Thursday with her 13-year-old cat Lola and five kittens from her feline rescue, but ended up hiding behind a locked examination room’s door as a distressed and armed man burst into the business and tried to assault employees.

She heard an employee trying to talk with “somebody in the building who shouldn’t be” while she was in an examination room. Her daughter was waiting outside in the parking lot.

“The next thing I know, the man started smashing things — something was going on out there — and one of the people working said they were going to call the police… she yelled she couldn’t stay on the phone because he was coming after her,” said Laferriere, who owns and operates Miss J.La’s Fur Babies Cat Cafe and Adoption Centre.

“I could only imagine what was happening on the other side of the door.”

The four people working in the office managed to run to safety, but at least one of them was injured while trying to escape, Laferriere said.

Police arrived quickly, she said, but the man had locked the clinic’s glass entry door. Officers were yelling at the man to drop the knife before they smashed in the door and moved in to arrest him, using a Taser electroshock weapon to subdue him.

“I could hear everything,” she said. “The man was not listening to what they told him, and they gave him a lot of warnings to drop the knife, and he wasn’t doing it… I heard the glass, I heard the Taser going… it was a lot going on out there.”

The incident lasted about 10 minutes but felt much longer, she said.

“(Police) got me out, me and the cats. The vet that was in there, she was grabbing carriers,” Laferriere said.

“It was very terrifying — I really thought I was going to die there, because all I knew was there was a guy with a knife on the other side of the door.”

Winnipeg police officers were sent to the business at about 9:50 a.m., where they were told a distressed man who had tried to stab an employee was still inside, police said Friday.

Four women in the building, including Laferriere, managed to lock themselves in separate rooms within the business, police said.

The man began to hurt himself with the knife while officers were trying to get inside. Once they made their way inside, the intruder sprayed a fire extinguisher at them.

After activating the Taser, the officers used pepper spray before putting him in handcuffs, police said. He was taken to hospital for his knife wounds.

A 27-year-old man from Brandon has been charged with three counts of assault with a weapon and one count each of assaulting a peace officer, resisting a peace officer and mischief under $5,000.

No one from the clinic could be reached for comment Friday.

erik.pindera@freepress.mb.ca