A man has been charged in a pair of alleged unprovoked stranger attacks in Surrey, B.C., earlier this month, police say.
Both attacks happened shortly before 11:30 a.m. Feb. 9 at a 7-Eleven on 120 Street near 64 Avenue, Surrey police said in a media release.
According to police, the suspect began to physically assault an employee of the business, when a bystander tried to intervene and was assaulted with what police, at the time, said they believed was a knife.
“The employee was stocking the shelves and then all of a sudden was essentially physically attacked by this person,” Surrey police spokesperson S/Sgt. Lindsey Houghton said.
“The good Samaritan, the other sort of customer who was in 7-Eleven at the time intervened and that’s when they were slashed.”
The bystander was treated in hospital for his injuries but survived.
Surrey police said they identified the suspect, who was arrested in Delta on Saturday with the help of local police and the Lower Mainland Integrated Emergency Response Team.
The neighbour next door phoned me cause we know them he said what’s going on? There’s police going in with guns,” neighbour neighbour Linda Giorgio told Global News.
“SWAT team at the front of the house by the garage and there was SWAT member in back of house,” added neighbour Jack Seto.
“Eventually the person came out with their hands up and the police took them away.”
Ja-Dev Singh Sangha is now facing charges of assault with a weapon and aggravated assault.
Court records show he was previously convicted for an assault in Surrey in 2017, and was handed a six-month conditional sentence along with 18 months of probation.