Suspect dies following police-involved shooting at North Vancouver mall

The suspect in a police-involved shooting at a shopping centre in North Vancouver on Tuesday has died from his injuries.

BC RCMP shared an update at 8 p.m., saying the suspect was taken to a local hospital, but he succumbed to his injuries.

Around 1:30 p.m., RCMP officers descended on the Westview Shopping Centre Mall on Westview Drive.

Witnesses told Global News that a suspect was seen holding a knife to a woman’s throat inside a McDonald’s when another man intervened.

Witness Arman Abadi said he went to McDonald’s to get an iced tea.

“I look up, as I’m waiting in line, I look and I notice a guy. He’s behind the counter on an employee,” he said.

“He pulls out a knife and takes one of the employees hostage. Most people run out of the restaurant. I wait inside, trying to see what’s going on. Eventually, he makes his way around to the front. He turns his back to me and I grab his hands. I wrestle with him, get the knife away from him, throw it under a table and I start fighting him.

“I pin him against the wall, one guy helps me. I ask everyone else to come help as well. So at this point, I’ve gotten the knife away. No one else comes in to help. He says, ‘I have another knife, let me go’. I’m like, if you have another knife, I’m not going to let you go.”

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Abadi said eventually he let the man go and that’s when he saw the man leave and gets into a truck.

“Starts to steal a truck,” he explained.

“Can’t get it turned on, puts it in neutral. I go up to the door; he pulls out a yellow box cutter, I back up, he rolls down the parking lot and hits another car and gets out, runs to the gas station trying to steal another car, and then the cops show up.”

Bahman Afshari, owner of the Westview Freshslice pizza, said he came out of his store to see what was happening when he heard yelling and screaming.

“I see the guy sitting in the pickup truck over there, the van, and they have a knife in his hand, try to hit the people who would get close to them,” he said.

“Then he couldn’t run away from the car, he jumped in the gas station, going in the other car, couldn’t go that way, again tried the other car. Then he can’t go that way, there is one cop’s car coming, he’s beside him, he jumps in the cop’s car, tries to get away from him, and he gets shot, with a rubber bullet.”

Afshari said the entire scene was chaotic.

“It was terrible; it was like a movie action, you know. Everything you see on the movie, you see the life in front of your eyes.”

He said the police arrived within minutes of the first call.

The public is being asked to avoid the area while the investigation continues.

The Independent Investigations Office of B.C. confirmed to Global News that they have been deployed to the scene as it was an officer-involved shooting.