A university student says she was terrified when she saw the man in her kitchen.
An intruder scaled a fence and, naked and barefoot, broke into a Chinatown residence housing mostly university students on Thursday afternoon, recalled the female student who encountered him in the kitchen.
He was holding a knife and a fire extinguisher he’d picked up after smashing the glass of the back door with a brick to gain entry, said Jamie, a 25-year-old University of Victoria microbiology student who has lived in there since May. The British Columbia native is working in a Montreal laboratory in a program combining studies with practical experience.
The incident highlights a worsening problem faced by neighbourhood residents associated with the presence of people with serious mental health and drug dependency problems, said Vincent Lupien, who owns the property and three others in the neighbourhood and has spoken out about public safety issues in Chinatown.
“If you are a consumer, this is where you go to buy crack cocaine,” Lupien said of sections of Chinatown. Police have told him they want to address the situation, but that everyone who is arrested “gets released the same day. … Maybe we can look at being a little bit tougher.”
“This is possibly the most drastic and potentially lethal situation in the neighbourhood we have heard about,” said Fo Niemi, executive director of the Center for Research-Action on Race Relations. “The police should take the situation of people with serious mental health problems more seriously.”
The Chinatown residence features seven individual rooms and residents, who include international students, share kitchen and bathroom facilities. Until the break-in, Jamie, who asked that her last name not be used, said she felt safe there.
Spying the intruder, “I was doubting what I saw: You do not expect a naked person in your kitchen.”
Another tenant, a male, first saw the intruder from his room upstairs, seated naked on the building’s back porch; he was heading downstairs to confront him when he heard glass being broken: He headed back upstairs, grabbed a hammer and called 911.
Jamie recalled that the intruder did put down the knife, although he continued to hold the fire extinguisher.
“He tried to talk. He said he wanted to make something out of concrete and said something about two weeks of food, although I don’t remember the context.”
She fled, texting the other roommates to say someone had broken in, and dashed down the street to a café on nearby de la Gauchetière St. and asked to call police.
Jamie has a black belt in karate, she said, and recalled that “the very first thing my karate teacher said was that if you encounter a person with a knife or a gun, run.”
Police apprehended the intruder, who had donned pants and relocated to an upper landing of a nearby building. Jamie met with officers at the café and wrote down what had happened. She was told she had a choice: to press charges or not to. Pressing charges, she was told, meant the intruder would be detained.
“I chose to press charges so they could detain this person and bring him to court,” she said. “I don’t want him back on the street because he might blame me for the fact that he was arrested — and a part of me thinks he probably has a mental illness and the only way he can get help is that if a judge rules that he needs to get psychiatric care.”
The intruder was arrested; Jamie was given a case identification number and a list of contacts, including one for Crime Victims Assistance Centres (CAVAC); she met with CAVAC representatives on Saturday, was given a number to call for information process and told she does not have to attend any court hearings if she does not wish to.
Niemi said the intruder will need a psychiatric assessment to see if he is fit to stand trial.
Family members have arrived in Montreal to support Jamie. “I am glad that they are here for me in the aftermath of this terrible event,” she said. “It was, arguably, the most terrifying event of my entire life.”
Meanwhile, the back door of the residence was boarded up on Thursday evening. Lupien will have to secure the property now, he said, by raising the height of the fence, having pointed metal bars placed the top and investing in wrought iron window grates.
“Montreal is making me understand that this is necessary,” he said.