Bystander describes attack at trial of teen accused in Halifax mall stabbing

A woman who managed to briefly halt the fatal attack on Ahmad Al Marrach is testifying at the trial of one of four teens accused of killing the 16-year-old boy outside a Halifax mall last spring.

On the second day of the trial in Nova Scotia youth court, Melanie Adolph said she had been shopping with her two children at the Halifax Shopping Centre on the afternoon of April 22, 2024, and had just returned to her car when she noticed a commotion in the parkade.

She put her children in the car, told them to stay there and then advanced toward the crowd.

Adolph said she saw a group attacking a teen who was on the floor.

She said a girl was stomping on his head and Adolph testified she thought she was "going to watch his head get kicked in."

Al Marrach died in hospital after being stabbed in the parking garage at the mall early on the evening of April 22, 2024.

Four teens — three boys and one girl — were each originally charged with second-degree murder. Two have since pleaded guilty to the lesser charge of manslaughter and are to be sentenced in separate hearings in March.

Kitchen knife was plunged into victim's chest

The girl Adolph said she saw kicking the victim is one of the two who have pleaded guilty to manslaughter for her part in the attack.

But in the agreed statement of facts read into the record during the girl's court appearance last Friday, no mention was made of her kicking Al Marrach in the head.

Adolph said that as she advanced at the group of teens, she shouted and swore, telling them to scatter.

She said her intervention brought a lull in the fighting, and Al Marrach got to his feet and was brushing himself off.

But Adolph said she then saw one of the boys draw a kitchen knife, hold it over his head and plunge it into Al Marrach's chest.

Bystanders walked by

Adolph said she asked people in the crowd if anyone had called 911, then made the call herself when she didn't get a clear answer. She testified that she called out to people to help her staunch the flow of blood and a motorcyclist asked what he could do, but a dozen or more adults walked on past the scene.

She said teenagers among the bystanders were crying, going in circles and "jumping up and down."

"Time slowed and went fast, all at the same time," Adolph said.

She said she estimates her involvement, from the time she first noticed the commotion, lasted about five minutes.

Earlier in the trial, one of the first Halifax police officers on the scene testified about what he saw and did.

Const. Leigh Pike said he arrived at the parkade shortly after 5 p.m., saw someone lying on the ground and instructed onlookers to stand back.

When he called a dispatcher, Pike was told no ambulance was immediately available. He also determined the parkade ceiling was too low to accommodate an ambulance, so he and some other officers picked up Al Marrach and moved him closer to an entrance.

Pike testified that when he was told a second time that no ambulance was available, a decision was made to put the boy in a police vehicle and rush him to hospital.

But he said by the time they made the transfer, an ambulance had showed up and was able to take Al Marrach to the hospital, where he was pronounced dead.

Pike said the call came toward the end of his shift and his involvement lasted about eight minutes.