A 70 -year -old man who was randomly attacked in Vancouver last week is to talk about the attack and says that Canada must reform its criminal justice system.
“It was so fast, he had to rush to me,” said the victim, that Global News is only identified as John with security problems.
The incident occurred around 3 p.m. last Friday, while John was walking near the Homer and West Pender streets. He had his phone and credit card to pay parking, and said he was only vaguely aware of a man walking in his direction.
“I think I took a look at my phone for a second, and the next thing I knew I saw that man’s face here, but I turned around, and he had, I think, what they call” the body shouted “,” he explained.
“And as you go down, you think what’s going on? And then I heard my head crack on the sidewalk. And you still don’t understand what’s going on.”
From the ground, John said that he could see the man move away as if nothing had happened. The attacker has not tried to take his phone or credit card, he added.
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The incident left him a head injury that required stitches and a fragment of glass anchored in his scalp.
Vancouver police said Derrick James McFeeters, 40, was arrested on Granville Street later the same day. He has since been accused of a chief of assault causing bodily lesions.
McFeeters has a long criminal file and was on bail when he would have attacked John.
Two weeks before that, he was accused of having attacked two police officers, one of whom suffered a broken wrist.
John said he was thinking that the incident is a symptom of more important problems with the way Canada takes care of crime.
“All I can tell you is that you feel less safe than you did 30 years ago,” he said, adding that the incident left him super vigilant when he was released in public.
He said the federal government must stiffen sanctions and create legal arrangements to “take care of people who cannot take care of themselves”.
“The daily person you are talking to knows that the system does not work, and they know that it must change. And we know that it must change starting from above, and I mean Ottawa,” he said.
“This means that you stop this catch and free up and promise to appear, and you have to punish people who need to punish and prevent them from having the opportunity they must endanger the security of the general public.”
McFeeters, on the other hand, remains in detention and must be back in court on Friday for a release hearing on bail.
– with rumina daya files
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