A 68-year-old New West woman is recovering from the shock and pain of being punched in the face by a stranger.
The Victoria Hill resident, who asked not to be identified, said a man hit her in the face on Saturday night while she was passing through the Shops at New West. She had just finished having dinner at the Boathouse and was stopping to pick up a few things at Safeway, before catching the bus home, when the incident occurred.
“I was more in shock at first,” she said. “My first reaction was: did this really happen? I just couldn't believe that it happened.”
The woman told the Record she had just gone up the stairs on the Eighth Street side of the Shops at New West when she saw something that appeared to be rising from the ground.
“And then, he hit me on the left side of my face,” she recalled. “I think I'm lucky in the fact that I started to turn when I saw it, so he wasn't able to get me square on.”
The force of the punch knocked her to the ground.
“Because he hit me and I was turning, I fell butt first, and then fell over, hitting my head,” she said. “I think I'm very lucky, because if I had fallen straight over on my head first, I might not be here, or I definitely would have been in the hospital. That kind of saved me a little bit.”
And the suspect?
“He bolted,” she said. “He just took off.”
The incident occurred around 8:40 p.m. in the area between Safeway and the New Westminster SkyTrain station entrance.
After being struck, a security guard immediately came to the woman’s aid.
“She saw the whole thing,” said the woman.
The female security guard, who was not wearing a uniform, was soon joined by a uniformed security guard; he took the victim downstairs to the Transit Police office, but it was closed. By the time they returned to the main level of the station, New Westminster police officers were already on scene.
While the woman and the security guard who’d witnessed the incident were talking with police, the victim spotted the suspect by the Old Spaghetti Factory and pointed him out to police.
“Again, he bolted,” she said.
Although her head was sore from the punch, the woman said she did not want to go to the hospital because she wasn’t up to spending hours waiting in the emergency department and thought she’d wait and see if she felt better in a couple of days. Still sore on Wednesday, the woman went to the hospital to get checked out.
“It’s still a little sore,” she said of her head. “They did CT scans, and they just said it's bruised.”
Five days after the alleged assault, the woman still had swelling on the side of her face and a bruised butt from falling onto the concrete.
In a statement to the Record, the New Westminster Police Department said officers were on “proactive foot patrol” in the area when they were flagged down and alerted to the incident.
“It was shared with police that this was an unprovoked assault and that the suspect struck the victim in the face,” said NWPD Sgt. Andrew Leaver. “Police believe the suspect and the victim are not known to each other.”
According to Leaver, the victim declined the services of BC Emergency Health Services paramedics.
“Police made an arrest at the scene, and the person arrested is known to police,” he said. “Charges related to assault are being forwarded to Crown counsel.”
Leaver attributed the NWPD’s quick response to the incident to funding from senior levels of government.
“Because of federal funding administered through the province, our officers were on foot patrol nearby and stepped in right away to help the victim and arrest the suspect,” he said.
Be aware
The woman, who frequently visits the station on her way to and home from work as a paralegal, said she always tries to be aware of her surroundings.
“And then this happened,” she said.
As a regular visitor to the New Westminster SkyTrain station, the woman said she frequently sees people overdosing and unhoused people congregating. Although some of those folks are nice, she’d like the city to take action to ensure all people are safe on downtown streets.
“Something's got to be done. … It's just so bad,” said the woman, who has lived in New West since 2003.
For now, the woman has a message for residents:
“Just be aware of your surroundings.”
