Nearly 10 months after a Sunday morning stabbing rampage that left a dog and man injured in a Kitsilano street, the suspect is set to return to court on multiple charges.
Kyle Michael Arnold is charged with aggravated assault, causing unnecessary pain and suffering to an animal, and assaulting a peace officer in connection to the startling attack in July 2018.
Arnold, who was born in 1993, has no past criminal charges or record in B.C. He’s due to appear in court June 5.
WATCH: (Aired July 29, 2018) Man arrested after stabbing dog in Kitsilano
Rose Steinmeier, whose dog Copper was injured in the random attack, still remembers that frightening day.
“It’s not something you just get over,” she said. “Even with going through therapy, it’ll be there for quite a while.”
On July 29, 2018, Steinmeier was walking her 11-year-old golden retriever-rottweiler cross along West Fourth Avenue near Yew Street when she saw a knife-wielding man covered in blood.
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“I remember looking up the street and seeing him coming towards me, and with the knife and the blood, thinking I had interrupted a movie shoot,” she said.
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Steinmeier said she tried to cross the street to avoid the suspect, but it was too late.
Fortunately, a customer at the nearby 49th Parallel Cafe rushed to subdue the attacker using a travel coffee mug.
WATCH: (Aired July 30, 2018) Vancouver canine stabbing victim meets coffee shop hero who saved him
Jonathan Ting, who was working at the coffee shop, also rushed out to Copper and Steinmeier’s aid, grabbing the dog and pulling him to safety.
“Those are the things I really want to remember,” Steinmeier said. “The people who were there, the ones who helped, the ones who didn’t need to get involved but they did.”
Moments before the dog was stabbed, Vancouver Police were alerted to a stabbing a few blocks away on West 13 Avenue and Arbutus Street, where they found a man in his late 20s suffering from stab wounds allegedly inflicted by a former roommate.
The victim was rushed to hospital in serious condition.
Officers say the suspect and that victim knew each other and had had an altercation before the suspect fled to the scene of the dog stabbing.
When police arrived on the scene of the dog attack, they found the suspect covered in blood with a stab wound to his chest.
After a physical struggle that saw two officers get hurt, the man was brought under control with a beanbag gun.
Charges against Arnold were officially sworn in November, and Steinmeier has been tracking the court process.
“I wish him the best,“ she said, while delivering a message to the man accused of attacking her dog.
“I mean, if this is a medical condition then please get the treatment you need and try to make something positive out of this. That’s not an easy thing to do considering the horror of it.”
WATCH: (Aired Nov. 20, 2013) Dog stabbed near Kits beach
Copper suffered three puncture wounds and other minor injuries, but Steinmeier says her dog is “almost back to perfection” physically.
“A little bit of a lag in the right front leg, that was the deepest puncture wound,” she said.
“Which just means squirrels have a better chance of getting away if he chases them.”
—With files from Sean Boynton, Jon Azpiri and Tanya Beja
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