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Thursday, July 31, 2008

Go Greyhound and Leave the Driving to Us!

posted by on July 31 at 10:24 AM

And leave the, um, decapitating to the lunatic sitting next to you.

Greyhound is reviewing security on its buses after a young man travelling to Winnipeg late Wednesday was stabbed to death and then decapitated in what appears to be a random act of violence.

Witnesses said the victim, described as between the ages of 18 to 20, was sleeping with his head against the window when the attack occurred.

“He was listening to music when suddenly the person next to him began to stab him in the neck with… a large butcher knife,” CTV’s Murray Oliver reported Thursday after speaking to witnesses…. The bus driver pulled over on a section of the east-bound Trans-Canada Highway — about 15 kilometres west of Portage la Prairie, Man — and many of the 37 passengers began to flee the bus.

Canton gathered a small group of people to go back and help the victim, said Oliver.

“They returned to the back of the bus to find that the person who was stabbing the person in the neck had now sawed off the head of (the victim).”

Thanks… or, um, not, to Slog tipper David.

RSS icon Comments

1

Only the crazies ride Greyhound. Sweet Moses.

Posted by Balt-O-Matt | July 31, 2008 10:30 AM
2

That's what you get when you blast Treble Booster on your shitty bud phones, you inconsiderate little bitch.

Posted by And I only slapped them off your head. You got lucky. | July 31, 2008 10:31 AM
3

This is typical Canada. We're all mild mannered and shit, but every once in a while someone goes crazy with a hunting knife.
This sounds absolutely horrific. On the cbc website it said that he walked up to the front of the bus holding the head, and then just dropped it in front of everyone.

Posted by ams | July 31, 2008 10:39 AM
4

Dude, this is some horror movie shit. If they hadn't contained that guy in the bus, he probably would have killed them all, one by one, by morning. Walking (never running) the whole time.

Posted by Callie | July 31, 2008 10:47 AM
5

Gruesome. If there was a quiz on which mode of transportation would most likely lead to a decapitation at the hands of another person i would definitely picked greyhound.

Posted by Bellevue Ave | July 31, 2008 10:50 AM
6

Holy fucking shit!

Posted by Ben | July 31, 2008 10:54 AM
7

Does Greyhound have cameras on the bus because I want to see this shit on youtube.

Posted by Vodka, grapefruit juice and salt | July 31, 2008 10:56 AM
8

Heavenly God, that's scary! Not that I ever had a reason to take the bus to Winnipeg, but I certainly will avoid doing so now.

Posted by Hernandez | July 31, 2008 10:58 AM
9

#8 - considering this is a random act of violence, avoiding bus travel to Winnipeg as a result of this incident seems, well, dumb.

Posted by Jen | July 31, 2008 11:02 AM
10

This is proof: the bus sucks.

Posted by max solomon | July 31, 2008 11:07 AM
11

maybe greyhound will start checking ids now.

Posted by Finishtag | July 31, 2008 11:09 AM
12

Was he wearing a hockey mask? It is Canada, after all.

Posted by Mahtli69 | July 31, 2008 11:18 AM
13

@11 - If this guy had used someone else's credit card, checking his ID might have helped.

But, he cut off someone's head. What good would an ID check do? To see if he's an organ donor?

Posted by Mahtli69 | July 31, 2008 11:23 AM
14

I guess one way to encourage car ownership and use is to make sure people have to walk through a metal detector and be searched for every form of mass transit ever invented.

Posted by Judah | July 31, 2008 11:24 AM
15

It was obviously an Amtrak assassin.

Posted by Gabe | July 31, 2008 11:36 AM
16

@7, you're a sick mother fucker. I'm trying to figure out what part of this merits cutesy comments, but at a loss. If you think it's hilarious, you should watch the video of the guy sitting in front of the victim. Very horrifying.

Posted by robo | July 31, 2008 11:39 AM
17

I always knew Winnipeg was bad news.

Posted by Fnarf | July 31, 2008 11:42 AM
18

Guy Maddin is already at work on the screenplay...

Posted by michael strangeways | July 31, 2008 12:15 PM
19

Yet another reason to use Zipcar over the bus. You listening Erica?

Posted by crk on bellevue ave | July 31, 2008 12:29 PM
20

Jesus fucking Christ.

Posted by laterite | July 31, 2008 12:39 PM
21

When I heard this on the radio this morning, I just about lost it. It's like something out of a Stephen King novel.

Posted by charm | July 31, 2008 12:45 PM
22

Scary.

Speaking of Greyhound, I've noticed the downtown terminal seems busier lately. Gas prices?

Posted by GK | July 31, 2008 12:55 PM
23

Is the guy going to be OK???

Posted by Jubilation T. Cornball | July 31, 2008 1:16 PM
24
Is the guy going to be OK???

The one who had his head sawed off with a butcher knife?

Probably not.

Posted by Judah | July 31, 2008 1:32 PM
25

avoiding bus travel to Winnipeg as a result of this incident seems, well, dumb

Jen, meet Sarcasm. Sarcasm, Jen.

Posted by Mike in MO | July 31, 2008 1:52 PM
26

The real tragedy here are the dumbass sheeple who ran off the bus. Seriously, forced military service for a few years when you hit 18 would go a loooonnng way to preventing violent crime. What the fuck was wrong with these people that they RAN AWAY when some poor asshat was getting stabbed in the neck? Why didn't anyone, I don't know, STOP THE MOTHERFUCKER? Society makes me sick.

Posted by Sheeple | July 31, 2008 2:28 PM
27

@26 - Let's roll!

Posted by I Got Shot Down by Dick Cheney | July 31, 2008 2:32 PM
28

The train back to Seattle from PDX was super delayed. In desperation to get home, I almost bought a Greyhound ticket. Sooo glad I didn't!

Posted by Amtrack | July 31, 2008 2:37 PM
29

@sheeple-

i personally am gonna take the fact that only 1 person died from the homicidal freak's rampage as evidence that running away was the right thing to do.

you think you're gonna be able to help somebody who's been fucking stabbed in the neck with a butcher knife? unless the poor sap gets stabbed on a gurney in an OR with surgeons scrubbed in, (and even then) I find it unlikely.

Posted by clausti | July 31, 2008 2:41 PM
30

@26- My thoughts exactly. Why on a FULL bus did NO ONE TRY TO STOP Stabby McStabbins?

Posted by Julie Russell | July 31, 2008 2:42 PM
31

@12

There was a girl in one of the Friday the 13th films (5, I believe?) who got machete'd by Jason because she had the music up too loud and was too busy doing the robot.

Put it on a bus and you've got this story.

Posted by Tasty | July 31, 2008 2:47 PM
32

@29, they got lucky. There have been lots of airplane hijackings that have ended peacefully, but what is it worth to you to stop the ones that don't? Let's say three people jumped up and stopped the guy. 2 of them get slashed and hurt, and the initial victim still dies. Worse outcome, right? Only if you know that Stabby is going to end there. What if Stabby would murder another victim, or take a hostage and negotiate the keys to the bus and drive it into the Mall of America (or Saskatchewan, or something)? Do you really want to be afraid all your life and only look out for your own best interests?

Posted by be afraid | July 31, 2008 3:04 PM
33

That totally happened to me once. I was sitting next to this one dude on the Greyhound bus playing travel Scrabble and we were neck-and-neck, but then I played KNIVES on a triple word score and he totally lost his head.

Posted by Breklor | July 31, 2008 3:31 PM
34

I'd bet money this happened in a Free Ride Zone. This sort of shit always happens in the Free Ride Zone.

Posted by You_Gotta_Be_Kidding_Me | July 31, 2008 3:37 PM
35

@32 is right. This is perfectly analogous to a plane hijacking. How would the poor Mall of America ever see the bus coming and be able to stop it if Stabby had procured the keys.Ask the people in the Twin Towers if they had any warning of the mass transit vehicle that slammed into THEIR building!

Also, who cares that every single law enforcement agency in North America would advocate doing exactly what the passengers on the bus did? What the hell do they know?

Posted by DemonJuice | July 31, 2008 6:32 PM
36

@35, according to other reports, the bus driver *disabled* the bus (public buses do generally have this), so when the guy *did* try to drive away, the bus wouldn't move. Three passengers held the door shut so that the guy couldn't get off to attack anyone else. So he was trapped in a confined space with no way out. Sounds to me that it was smarter than attacking a murderous armed man in a tight, confined space.

Posted by Lianne | August 1, 2008 9:31 AM
37

Um.. 3rd plane.... 9/11. Passengers overthrow terrorists. Save Many.Avoid intended target.

Remind me never to be in a crisis with a bunch of Sloggers.

Posted by Julie Russell | August 1, 2008 12:11 PM
38

Will somebody explain how 9/11 got worked into this???

This psycho instantly delivered fatal wounds to someone before anyone knew what was happening. Were the other passengers supposed to use their magic powers to bring the victim back to life? Were they supposed to die, too, so that his death wouldn't be in vain?

There was one fatality on a bus full of potential victims and the psycho was nearly immediately contained -- and this was a failure on the part of the other passengers how exactly?

Posted by whatevernevermind | August 1, 2008 1:14 PM
39

It turns out that only the victim was from Winnepeg. Stabby was from Edmonton. Score one for the oil patch!

Posted by Don't blame the 'Peg | August 1, 2008 2:00 PM
40

35 brought in hijacking.

I'm just saying...It takes (I assume) a while to decapitate someone. MANY people survive stab wounds.

A busload of people could overpower 1 maniac.

Maybe I am crazy, but if I saw someone being stabbed.... Even someone I REALLY didn't like (say Colleen Lynn, Ellen Taft, Kim Schriefer) I would still try to help them.

Posted by Julie Russell | August 1, 2008 2:11 PM
41

Read the interview. After securing the safety of the other passengers, three men did go back to see if they could help the victim. At which time they found him being decapitated.

And yes, people can survive from stab wounds, but from what I heard, he was stabbed in the neck. You hit the jugular just once, and it's game over.

38 was on the money. In the case of a hunting knife weilding maniac, get your ass off the bus. What if they're attempts had enraged him further? What if disturbing him would have encouraged him to take his act outside the bus? Some of those passengers were small children. They did the right thing. By the time they knew what was happening, it was too late for the victim.

Posted by Charm | August 1, 2008 2:37 PM
42

I didn't read that the victim died instantly. Or that he had been stabbed in the throat. That does change the scenario.

Posted by Julie Russell | August 1, 2008 2:54 PM

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