Mirella Gibeau said her daughter, who asked not to be named, was walking in the area of Waterloo and West 10th streets in Kitsilano around 2:30 a.m. when he was attacked by two masked strangers.
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“She didn’t want to give up her phone, so they hit her seven times in the face,” Gibeau told Global News. “What kind of man, what kind of man, hits a woman in the face?” The woman, in her 30s, suffered a broken nose and is “traumatized” and worried her face will never be the same, her mother said. Story continues below ad Vancouver police confirmed they are investigating the attack. On average, the police force said there are four unprovoked attacks by strangers in the city every day. “I can only imagine that this was an extremely frightening incident for the victim,” said Sgt. Steve Addison in an interview. “We don’t know what their motive was, we don’t know what they intended to do.” Addison said the suspects are believed to be two men in their 20s, but because their faces were covered, there is no particular physical description at this stage of the investigation. Trending Stories
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Gibeau said the men eventually ran away, leaving her daughter on the ground. A taxi driver saw her bleeding and offered to take her to the hospital, she added, but her daughter waited for her father to pick her up. Story continues below ad The woman was released from the hospital before noon Tuesday. “He said when they hit you and all you hear is the fabric of their windbreaker, that’s when you realize how dark and how alone you are,” Gibeau recalled. “We need to feel safe.”
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The mother, who has lived in Vancouver for many years, said she sees safety in the city steadily “degenerating.” He denounced any political insistence that Vancouver is a safe place. “I don’t need Vancouver to fix the world, what I need is Vancouver to care about the people who live here,” he said. The attack on her daughter follows a particularly violent weekend in the city. According to police, there were six stabbings over a 40-hour period, one of which was fatal. Anyone with information about the attack in Kitsilano is asked to contact Vancouver police. © 2022 Global News, a division of Corus Entertainment Inc.
