WATCH: A 44-year-old man is under arrest tonight after a rampage in Parksville Thursday, and as Kendall Hanson reports, one young man says he came face to face with the machete-armed suspect.
A frightening incident in Parksville on Thursday began when a man stormed into the office of Jett Auto Auction on Allsbrook Road in Parksville.
“Had a scarf over his face, sunglasses on and just looked like he was right messed up,” said Nathan Bouchard.
He was armed with two machetes and an axe handle. Twenty-year-old Bouchard was at the counter.
“He was yelling at me, swearing, asking where this blond was. [He was] freaking out and then he was getting agitated with me and took a swing,” said Bouchard. “I was standing right there and at that point, I was ‘alright, I’m dead.'”
The man suddenly left the office and confronted several other employees outside.
Witnesses said he ordered one of them to help him push his bike out.
“When I was coming towards his bike, I reached down and picked up his hat and gave it to him and he said ‘thank-you,'” said Tom Palmer. “I pretended I was pushing on the bike and he started it up and he burned out of here and sprayed everything.”
Employees saw the man head to nearby RotoRooter where he drove around the parking lot and dropped one of the machetes.
He then rode to a trailer, where he reportedly smashed a window and the door.
Next, he went to a nearby home. A woman and her six and nine-year-old children ran from the house after the man had climbed into it through a window.
“The neighbour was yelling and screaming for me to come down and help her,” said Mike Warren, owner of Fair Deals Tires.
“I didn’t know if her children were in trouble or what the problem was and [I] ran down there and she said somebody was breaking into her house so I told her to cross the street.”
RCMP arrived on the scene at that point but the man had climbed onto the roof of a nearby business. He climbed down the other side before officers arrested him at gunpoint.
“I thought I was watching cops or some TV show. It was something you wouldn’t expect in Parksville,” said Warren.
AS CHEK News first reported Thursday the man is now facing several charges and police believe it was drug-induced. All those who saw the man didn’t know him but his rampage has shaken their sense of safety.
Kendall Hanson
