{"id":94759,"date":"2017-03-20T22:42:24","date_gmt":"2017-03-21T02:42:24","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/canadianinquirer.net\/v1\/?p=94759"},"modified":"2017-03-20T22:42:24","modified_gmt":"2017-03-21T02:42:24","slug":"b-c-man-shot-by-police-repeatedly-stabbed-himself-before-shooting-witnesses","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/canadianinquirer.net\/v1\/2017\/03\/20\/b-c-man-shot-by-police-repeatedly-stabbed-himself-before-shooting-witnesses\/","title":{"rendered":"B.C. man shot by police repeatedly stabbed himself before shooting: witnesses"},"content":{"rendered":"

\"\u2014<\/a>
Employees at a grocery store in Surrey, B.C., told a corner’s inquest Monday that they watched a man repeatedly stab himself with stolen paring knives minutes before he was shot by transit police. (Photo by Mateom28 (Own work) [CC BY-SA 3.0 (http:\/\/creativecommons.org\/licenses\/by-sa\/3.0)]<\/a>)<\/figcaption><\/figure>BURNABY, B.C. \u2014 Employees at a grocery store in Surrey, B.C., told a corner’s inquest Monday that they watched a man repeatedly stab himself with stolen paring knives minutes before he was shot by transit police.<\/p>\n

Naverone Woods, 23, was shot inside the Safeway by officers on the morning of Dec. 28, 2014, and died after he was taken to hospital.<\/p>\n

Glen Gorgas, the manager of the meat department, said he watched helplessly as the shirtless young man stabbed himself.<\/p>\n

\u201cIt was almost like he was in a catatonic state, like he was a zombie,\u201d he told the inquest.<\/p>\n

\u201cYou could tell he was really hurt. I wanted to go right up to him and help, but he had two knives in his hand.\u201d<\/p>\n

Transit police told the man several times to drop the knives before he was shot, Gorgas said.<\/p>\n

The Independent Investigations Office, which investigates serious cases involving police, cleared officers of any wrongdoing in May 2016. The coroner’s service holds an inquest into every police-involved death in an effort to make recommendations aimed at preventing similar fatalities.<\/p>\n

Michael Patron, the store’s loss-prevention officer, told the coroner’s jury on the first day of testimony that he began following Woods because he seemed \u201cout of sorts.\u201d<\/p>\n

Woods went directly to the back of the store, he said, and ripped open a package of knives. Woods held a knife in each hand and wandered the aisles, stabbing himself in the abdomen between 12 and 20 times before police arrived, Patron said.<\/p>\n

\u201cHe never said anything,\u201d he said.<\/p>\n

The inquest also heard from an emergency room doctor who said Woods came into Surrey Memorial Hospital hours before he was shot, saying he had fallen and hurt his knee.<\/p>\n

\u201cBehaviourally, he was calm, co-operative and appropriate,\u201d said Dr. Craig Murray.<\/p>\n

Murray said Woods told him he had been drinking alcohol and using a variety of drugs earlier that week, and mentioned having a seizure earlier in the day.<\/p>\n

He testified that he told Woods to stop using drugs, gave him painkillers and discharged him around 5 a.m.<\/p>\n

A bus driver told the inquest that Woods appeared \u201cquite agitated\u201d when he ran into the closed doors of her bus at the Surrey Central transit station around 8 a.m. the same day.<\/p>\n

\u201cI was a bit scared. I just didn’t want to deal with it. So I closed my doors when he ran at my bus,\u201d Christine Morrison said.<\/p>\n

She testified that after calling security, she continued along her route. When Morrison returned to the area another driver told her there was an incident between a young man and police, and the man had been taken to hospital.<\/p>\n

\u201cI felt horrible because I was the one who initiated the call. And he’s the same age as my kids,\u201d she said, crying.<\/p>\n

Surveillance footage presented at the inquest shows a young man in a grey hoodie and orange hat walk into a convenience store close to the transit station. He paces around, gesturing emphatically.<\/p>\n

Store employee Minseon Yong told the inquest that Woods appeared intoxicated, and said \u201cWhere’s the knife?\u201d repeatedly.<\/p>\n

Tracey Woods said outside the inquest that Naverone’s friends and family are hoping it brings some answers.<\/p>\n

\u201cWe’re going to find out exactly what happened because we’ve never, ever had too much information on the events,\u201d she said.<\/p>\n

In her testimony, Woods described her brother-in-law as a \u201chappy-go-lucky\u201d guy who loved his family.<\/p>\n

\u201cStill to this very day there’s a huge empty spot in all of us.\u201d<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

BURNABY, B.C. \u2014 Employees at a grocery store in Surrey, B.C., told a corner’s inquest Monday that they watched a …<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":33,"featured_media":94761,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[1482,18,16],"tags":[16846],"class_list":["post-94759","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","category-breaking","category-news-ca","category-news","tag-b-c-man","mauthors-gemma-karstens-smith","mauthors-the-canadian-press"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/canadianinquirer.net\/v1\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/94759","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/canadianinquirer.net\/v1\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/canadianinquirer.net\/v1\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/canadianinquirer.net\/v1\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/33"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/canadianinquirer.net\/v1\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=94759"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/canadianinquirer.net\/v1\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/94759\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/canadianinquirer.net\/v1\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/94761"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/canadianinquirer.net\/v1\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=94759"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/canadianinquirer.net\/v1\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=94759"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/canadianinquirer.net\/v1\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=94759"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}