A man who is said to be mentally-challenged went berserk shortly after 11 am yesterday and stabbed an elderly school vendor in the neck following taunts by pupils of Vryman’s Erven Secondary Annex at Trinity Street, New Amsterdam.
According to a student attending the learning institution, during the lunch break she noticed the “known character of unsound mind walking along the street which runs in an east to west direction. However, some boys from Form One were interfering with the man who had a knife in his hand. He then rushed into the school which also houses the Trinity Street Primary and Nursery departments and all the children started running frantically.”
The Third Form student related that the vendor Yvonne Permaul shouted at the infuriated man who then turned his attention on her and stabbed her in the neck.
A student rushed over to the woman’s assistance and gave her a jacket which was placed on the bleeding wound and subsequently she was taken to the New Amsterdam Hospital where she underwent emergency surgery.
Meanwhile members of the teaching staff summoned the police who arrived within minutes. On their arrival, the assailant attempted to flee the scene but the plain clothes ranks were hot on his heels. In his bid to elude the police, the thirty-six- year-old man plunged into a clogged drain and threatened to kill himself if the officers attempted to arrest him.
Several persons who knew the welder pleaded with him to surrender but instead he began inflicting wounds on himself with a knife.
An onlooker, Colin Timmons remarked, “Is dem children cause this, if they did not interfere with him this would not have happened. Their parents and teachers should teach dem not to trouble these people .. Dem done mad already.”
Even as residents voiced their concerns, other police ranks arrived and attempted to pull the man out of the drain.
However after a warning shot was fired from a service revolver, the man who appeared terrified by the report allowed ranks to arrest him and they bundled him into the trunk of a police car.
He was then taken to the New Amsterdam Hospital to be treated.
Meanwhile relatives of the injured Permaul related that the sixty-three-year-old
woman had been vending since 1970, starting out at All Saints Primary before moving to the present location.
