WHAT is going on in people's brains?

[Catty1]

As you can imagine, I sure have seen this story on the CBC and other Canadian news sites today.

When the driver and passengers saw they couldn't help the victim, the driver closed and locked (?) the door to keep the killer contained.

When they let him out, he was holding the victim's head...and just dropped it.

There were some young kids with their parents - I pray to God they didn't see that.

"Like a robot"...just don't get it...if he had a condition like schizophrenia and didn't take his meds, he could have gone right way out there...but OMG.

Prayers for the victim - who was brave enough to yell at the others to leave before he died, and his family.

Prayers for all on that nightmare.

[Catty1]

(Graphic details removed)

http://www.cbc.ca/canada/manitoba/st...anscanada.html


40-year-old suspect held in gruesome Manitoba bus killing
Passenger decapitated, witnesses say; story contains graphic details
Last Updated: Thursday, July 31, 2008 | 4:04 PM CT CBC News

A 40-year-old man is in custody in Manitoba after a young man was stabbed — and, witnesses said, decapitated — aboard a Greyhound bus travelling through the province overnight.

Police officers spent Thursday examining a Greyhound bus where a passenger was reportedly stabbed and decapitated late Wednesday. The RCMP would not confirm the reports of beheading, saying only that a stabbing took place around 8:30 p.m. CT on an eastbound Greyhound bus on the Trans-Canada Highway about 20 kilometres west of Portage la Prairie.

The suspect, believed to be from outside Manitoba, was arrested early Thursday morning after a standoff lasting several hours and remains in RCMP custody .

Charges have not yet been laid, and the suspect has not yet been interviewed, said RCMP spokesman Staff Sgt. Steve Colwell, adding that he could release no further information on the investigation.

The RCMP declined to identify either the suspect or the victim.

Thirty-seven people were aboard the bus en route to Winnipeg from Edmonton.

Colwell said the "brave" behaviour of the passengers and driver probably prevented anyone else from being hurt.

"It's not something that happens regularly on a bus," he said. "You're sitting there enjoying your trip and then all of a sudden somebody gets stabbed. I imagine it would be pretty traumatic … the way they acted was extraordinary."

Victim 'just a kid': witness

Passenger Cody Olmstead, 21, told CBC News he had smoked a cigarette earlier in the trip with the victim, whom he described as a man in his late teens or early 20s. The victim got on the bus in Edmonton, he said.

"I never took the time to know him, but he seemed to be OK, right, just a kid," said Olmstead, a Nova Scotia man who had been taking the bus from Alberta to Montreal.

"He just said he was going to Winnipeg … going home, that's where he was from."

"It looked kind of like a scuffle or an argument, you know, and then somebody's, like, 'Knife! Knife! Run!' so I was running up the alleyway, slapping people telling them to get going, move, get off the bus. I got pushed over, some lady got pushed over, I was just making sure everybody was OK, and we all got off the bus," said Olmstead

As panicked passengers fled the bus, "the attacker was over top of the victim...I think the victim was gone at that point," Caton said.

Trio tried to check on victim

Caton, the driver and a trucker who had stopped at the scene later boarded the vehicle to see if the victim was still alive.

The attacker ran at them, Caton said, and they ran out of the bus, holding the door shut as he tried to slash at the trio.

When the attacker tried to drive the bus away, the driver disabled the vehicle, Caton said.

"They did an awesome thing, holding him in there, because if not, what would have happened?" said Olmstead.

RCMP crisis negotiators communicated with the suspect for several hours while he was on the bus. Around 1:30 a.m., he attempted to jump from a bus window and was subdued and arrested, RCMP said.

Acted 'like he was a robot'

Caton described the attacker as surprisingly calm. "It was like he was at the beach or something. There was no rage in him. He wasn't swearing or cursing or anything. It was just like he was a robot or something."

The suspect remained on the bus for several hours and was arrested around 1:30 a.m., RCMP said. Police cruisers arrived about 10 minutes after the attack began, he estimated, and officers began directing passengers to school buses to take them to a hotel in Brandon.

Caton described the attacker as appearing "totally normal" earlier in the journey, even chatting with a young woman as he smoked a cigarette during a break.

But when he got back on the bus, he moved his belongings from the front to a seat beside the victim in the back and about 20 minutes later began attacking the man, said Caton. "He didn't say anything to the victim at all," said Caton.

Counsellors, chaplains aid passengers

A six-year-old and other children were among the passengers who saw the horrific incident unfold, said Caton.

"It was pretty traumatic," he said, adding that some passengers said they have been unable to sleep or eat since it happened.

"It's disturbing," Olmstead agreed, adding that images of the previous night haunted him when he tried to fall asleep early Thursday morning. "I closed my eyes and I seen him in the window there, just like a madman."

Bev Cumming, head of acute care services for the Brandon Regional Health Authority, said chaplains and psychiatric nurses have been working with dozens of passengers on the bus since they arrived in Brandon.

Recent violent incidents that have occurred on Greyhound buses in Canada:

* Dec. 24, 2007: A 27-year-old man is stabbed after an argument with another passenger on a bus near Tweed, Ont.
* Feb. 16, 2007: A group of people in their 20s attack and beat the driver of a bus in Lloydminster, Alta.
* Dec. 23, 2000: A man attempts to take control of a bus near Thunder Bay, Ont. Thirty-two passengers are injured when the bus lands on its side in a ditch. One woman later dies of her injuries.
* March, 2000. A pregnant woman is attacked by a man on a bus in London, Ont. The woman suffered injuries to her arms.

"When you see something as horrifying as that, the brain locks on to those images. It's very difficult to release those images," Cumming said.

"The assistance that people will get will be along the lines of coping in the immediate phase, learning what to do to reduce the profound effect this experience will have."

Tim Sen, president of Trauma Management Group, which offers counselling and post-traumatic support in Ontario, said it will take time for bus passengers to come to terms with what they've seen.

"They will experience very, very vivid flashbacks of that occurrence. Those will usually dissipate over a period of time, but right now it's going to be very vivid [as] they're still dealing with the shock and processing this horrific event," he said.

"There's not a right or wrong way to go through this. Some people will still be in shock and being very flat in presentation, like nothing's happened. Other people may not get out of bed and not want to move for a while, or be having what we call very acute [responses], so they'll be maybe crying and not wanting to calm down at all. Everybody's going to go through this very difficult journey in a very different way."

For children on the bus, Sen said, the response will depend on the age and maturity of the child. Generally, the key message caregivers should try to convey is that the situation is over and the child is now safe.

If intense feelings and emotions and symptoms such as flashbacks don't subside within a few months, Sen said, the passengers should consider seeking professional help.

Investigation is in 'full motion': minister

Public Safety Minister Stockwell Day commented on the killing, saying that like most Canadians, he was horrified to hear witness accounts of the homicide.

"The horrific nature of it is probably one of a kind in Canadian history," he told reporters late Thursday morning in Lévis, Que.

The minister said he didn't want to say anything that would compromise the investigation, but "I can assure people that everything is in full motion and momentum to getting to the bottom of this incident."

Questioned about whether weapons regulations should be put into place for buses, Day said it would be premature to look at such precautionary measures but added that the legal process will be followed as "aggressively as possible."

The union that represents Greyhound drivers says the company must move to improve its security measures.

"All we can do is physically observe the individual's behaviour, but obviously the item of destruction got on the bus somehow, and if it was visible to any driver, he would not have boarded the bus just for that simple reason," said Jim Higgs, a spokesman for the Amalgamated Transit Union.

"There has to be some reactive measures taken, whether it be metal screening, or whether we design differently our loading policies at various depots [so] you have to funnel down a chute as your only way onto the bus…. At major terminals, I really believe now we have to do something — not only that, we have to be investigating carry-on luggage and certain things like that."

Greyhound spokeswoman Abby Wambaugh said the company is examining security on buses.

"We are working with Transport Canada to review inter-city bus security," she said.

"Due to the rural nature of our network, airport-type security is not practical for bus travel. It's just a completely different system."

With files from the Canadian Press

[shepgirl]

I've heard and read just abou every version of it also. Robot like keeps sticking in my mind. Either he was on something or he was psychotic or psyzo as you mentioned and hadn't taken the meds.
Some people we know in Edmonton say they don't think they ever want to take a bus again, can't say that I blame them.
Don't think I would ever want to be on any bus going anywhere after listening to the news on and on about this.

[Catty1]

http://www.greyhound.ca/scripts/en/T...s.asp?state=on

This link shows all the Greyhound locations in Ontario - JUST Ontario.

I also checked how many buses per day go from Sudbury ON to Toronto (and there are 5 Toronto destinations).

There are thousands of locations in Canada, most with at least 3 schedules passing through them.

So in 8 years, including this week, 5 incidents of violence have occurred among thousands and thousands of trips and routes.

I'd take Greyhound again. The chances of harm are pretty slim - and it's safer than driving my car all that distance (though a tad hard on the tush! )

[Grace]

Too bad one of the other passengers didn't have a CCW. It all might have been over almost before it began.

[Catty1]

What's a CCW?

[finn's mom]

What's a CCW?

I looked it up on Wikipedia...concealed-carry weapon. Or carrying a concealed weapon.

[sparks19]

http://www.greyhound.ca/scripts/en/T...s.asp?state=on

This link shows all the Greyhound locations in Ontario - JUST Ontario.

I also checked how many buses per day go from Sudbury ON to Toronto (and there are 5 Toronto destinations).

There are thousands of locations in Canada, most with at least 3 schedules passing through them.

So in 8 years, including this week, 5 incidents of violence have occurred among thousands and thousands of trips and routes.

I'd take Greyhound again. The chances of harm are pretty slim - and it's safer than driving my car all that distance (though a tad hard on the tush! )

Well it certainly doesn't make me afraid to take the bus... but it doesn't make it any less sickening.

to kill someone while you basically look into their eyes up close and hear their screams and continue to plunge your knife into them and then cut off their head and carry it around? There is no question that this guy is SICK SICK SICK

CCW.... not just any idiot can get a CCW. I wouldn't be convinced that this PSYCHO was going to stop at just this one victim. He was SERIOUSLY disturbed... I wouldn't have put it past him to turn the weapon on someone else in such close quarters. were it me (I was not there and have never been in such a horrifying situation so this is all speculation) and I was knowlegable enough to have a CCW permit I would have squared myself up with this maniac so that any "missed" shot would go out the window instead of into someone else and ended the madness before he could turn on anyone else or beheaded the innocent victim beside him.

No it may not have saved that victim but if he decided to turn his weapon on someone else it could have saved them.

[Puckstop31]

Wow... Prayers for the victims survivors and other passengers on the bus. Lets hope that the ones who will inevitably suffer from PTSD because of this can get the best treatment possible. PTSD sucks (I had it) but with the right treatment a person can get past it. In my experience, the key is good group talks with a experienced doctor.


As for a CCW helping here... Probably not. First, I don't think there even is such a thing as a civilian CCW in Canada. But, that kind of situation on a bus? The chances of getting a clean shot are almost nil. It sounds like the victim was killed almost right away, so the best thing a CCW could do here is keep the people off the bus safe, or end the situation if the attacker chose to get off the bus. The most skilled hostage rescue force in the world, the US Army 'Delta Force', trains for that kind of thing. They are the best combat shooters on Earth and even they do not like those kind of situations.

[sparks19]

I like that the trucker pulled over and supplied "weapons" (hammer, crow bar, etc) to keep the attacker at bay. I shudder to think what could have happened had they not had those tools to keep him there.

I just hope that guy is locked up FOREVER and EVER. he doesn't even DESERVE to die. That would be too easy IMO. Let him rot on a bed with metal cuffs holding him down.

I don't care how much "rehabilitation" they give him. there is NO therapy that will EVER make me comfortable with him being around another human being again.

to sit right beside a guy you don't even know and in cold blood stab him repeatedly in front of dozens of people and then behead him and carry the head around? Yeah... that's a special kind of crazy right there that I am not convinced can ever be fixed.

this really is the most frightening thing I have read in a long long time