A group of people made a citizen's arrest after witnessing what appeared to be an assault on a woman at Kelowna’s waterfront Wednesday afternoon.
One witness saw a man attack a woman in City Park around 1 p.m. He said it appeared the woman was a tourist who was on her phone at the time.
“Grabbed her phone and spit on her and was yelling and smashed her phone and ran. And then, the whole community just devoured this guy,” explains the man who shared video footage of several men holding down the suspect while they waited for police.
The witness, who lives in downtown Kelowna, alleges the suspect yelled racial slurs at the woman during the incident. He calls it, “just another symptom of what we’re going through here.”
In the video, the suspect can be heard saying, “I never touched her. I grabbed her phone and smashed it.”
A woman who witnessed the attack is heard in the background saying she told the victim to take photos and noticed some marks on her back. Police and a man who looks like a security guard are later seen taking the man into custody.
The Kelowna RCMP confirms that there is an active investigation into an incident that took place at Mills Street and Queensway which resulted in one man being arrested with the assistance of members of the public. RCMP will be forwarding charges to the BC Prosecution Service.
