Stockwell Day, the public safety minister, said the assailant should be prosecuted to the fullest extent of the law. The attack left Canadian officials grasping for explanations. "Bus travel has been and remains the safest mode of travel in the country." "The incident was very tragic but was an isolated event," Wambaugh said. The company plans to provide the witnesses with any assistance they need, including trauma counselling and transportation. Greyhound spokeswoman Abby Wambaugh offered condolences to the victim's family. "He went back to his seat and brought the head to the front and pretty much displayed it to us like that, and then dropped it on the ground in front of us," Caton said. "We heard this blood-curdling scream and turned around, and the guy was standing up, stabbing this guy sitting next to him repeatedly," Caton said.Ĭaton and the driver soon returned to the vehicle, however, and found the assailant still hacking the young man's body into pieces. "When he was attacking him, he was calm - it was like he was at the beach," Caton said. Passenger Garnet Caton told the Canadian press that the assailant had "no rage or anything" and "was just like a robot" as he decapitated the victim. The 37 passengers who escaped the bus after the bloodshed began, including several children, were later taken to a nearby hotel by the Canadian mounted police. ![]() ![]() Tributes to McLean have appeared in droves on the popular online networking site, Facebook. The shocking story has focussed worldwide attention on the small Manitoba town of Portage La Prairie, where the bus stopped after the attack began. After pulling out a hunting knife and stabbing McLean as many as 40 or 50 times, witnesses said, Li displayed the victim's severed head to horrified passengers who had already fled the bus. “It is a shocking story any time a public servant is killed while working,” he said.” We don’t think things like this are going to happen.Reports from the scene of the ostensibly random attack describe Li as boarding the bus, which was en route to Winnipeg, without incident. Smyth said the incident was “shocking,” but also called it a “rare occurrence. The officer was rescued and did not suffer any injuries. Smyth noted that one officer went onto the ice as part of the investigation and fell through. "A canine unit member was able to apprehend the suspect before he crossed the river." "The suspect was trying to cross the river," Smyth said. He said witnesses directed officers to the frozen Red River where the police canine unit was able to track down the suspect. Winnipeg Transit director Dave Wardrop said the city is looking into new measures to improve safety.Īt a news conference Tuesday morning, Winnipeg Police Chief Danny Smyth said officers were on scene shortly after 2 a.m. “From what I gather,” Thorp said, “this was a person that was asleep on the bus and the operator approached this individual and woke them up, and it escalated from there.” He said municipalities across Canada need to take transit safety more seriously, although he said it appears full shields would not have helped in this particular incident. Paul Thorp, President of the Amalgamated Transit Union Canada, said that although assaults of transit operators happen every day in Canada, Fraser’s death marks the first time a driver has been killed. ![]() ![]() The city piloted the shields but never implemented them. Giesbrecht was among the drivers who said that the death highlights the need for plastic shields that fully separate drivers from passengers. No criminal charges have been laid.īus driver Nelson Giesbrecht said Irvine had been working nights because his daughter died and he had been caring for her child during the day. Fraser died in hospital after he was stabbed by a passenger while stopped at the end of his route.Ī 22-year-old suspect was taken into custody. The deadly stabbing of a Winnipeg bus driver at the University of Manitoba campus early on Tuesday morning has renewed calls to improve safety for transit workers.
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