Teen arrested after 2 men, 84-year-old woman stabbed near Winnipeg's Grant Park mall

A 15-year-old boy is in custody after Winnipeg police say he stabbed three people — including an elderly woman who was taken to hospital in critical condition — near Grant Park Shopping Centre on Tuesday night.

Police were first tipped off about the incident around 9 p.m., when emergency personnel were sent to the area for a report of several stabbings, the Winnipeg Police Service said in a news release Wednesday afternoon.

Police allege the incident began when the teen broke into a home near the mall on Lorette Avenue. The man who owns the property and another man then chased the teen as he took off, police said.

As the teenager was running away, he allegedly attacked and stabbed an 84-year-old woman who got in the way, Const. Claude Chancy said Wednesday morning.

She was found with stab wounds at the intersection of Thurso Street and Lorette Avenue, the police release said.

The two men, ages 43 and 46, then caught the boy in the mall's parking lot — but as they were holding him, the teen stabbed the men too, Chancy said.

The younger man was taken to hospital in unstable condition and has since been upgraded to stable. The older man was treated at the scene.

The woman was taken in critical condition to hospital, where she needed surgery, Chancy said. She was still in hospital Wednesday afternoon, the police news release said.

Patiogoers, staff 'eager to jump in and help': witness

Mackenzie Kolton was finishing up after dinner on the patio at Fionn MacCool's when chaos broke out in the nearby parking lot. But it would be some time before anyone realized there had been a stabbing, she said — when she first looked out, it was a truck zooming toward where she was sitting that grabbed her attention.

"A lot of people that were sitting on the patio got up and ran from their table because the car was heading, if it didn't stop, directly into the patio," Kolton said, adding that when the vehicle did stop she realized someone was underneath it.

"I originally thought the bigger issue was a person that just got absolutely run over by a car. And that's what people screamed at first, is he's under the car….  I didn't see directly if the person was hit. But I know that somebody was underneath a car for quite a few minutes."

She said restaurant staff ran inside to call 911 as people went over to check on the injured person. It wasn't until then that Kolton said she saw someone bleeding and learned there had been a stabbing.

She said she watched as a nurse who happened to be on the patio put on a pair of gloves and started attending to the stabbing victim, sitting him up against the outside of the restaurant as they applied pressure and water to any wounds.

"Props to the staff and everyone for jumping in. I know those encounters can be really scary, and I think sometimes there's the worry of obviously personal safety and not wanting to get involved," Kolton said. 

"But both people sitting on the patio, as well as the staff, were eager to jump in and help and make sure that everyone got medical attention and kind of kept calm."

Chancy confirmed a nurse provided emergency care to the man until an ambulance arrived.

Once police arrived, Kolton said she watched officers pull the teen out from under the truck where people had been holding him down and take him away in handcuffs.

She said it's still not clear to her who was driving the truck and if they were connected to either of the men who chased the teen.

Police spokesperson Const. Dani McKinnon said later Wednesday the teen was not taken to hospital while in custody, though she said she did not have "any definitive information if he was injured or not during the incident." She would not comment further.

Police said the victims and the teen didn't know each other before the stabbings.

The teen is charged with two counts each of aggravated assault, possession of a weapon and mischief under $5,000.

He's also charged with assault with a weapon and breaking and entering with intent, police said.

The incident comes days after a woman in her 20s was carjacked in the same Grant Park parking lot. She later had to jump out of her moving vehicle to escape the attacker in that incident, police said.

Graham Bialek, the general manager of Grant Park Shopping Centre, said the mall is aware of the recent incidents in its parking lot and has increased the security presence outside the building in response.