You made me sick

[skippy]

Edmonton bus spat turns deadly

Clash over cold meds turns into fatal stabbing: witness

By CARY CASTAGNA, SUN MEDIA

Two Edmonton Transit passengers were arguing over cold medication just moments before one of them fatally stabbed the other at a downtown bus stop, says a horrified eyewitness.

Cynthia Gallinger, 45, told the Sun she was on a city trolley bus about 7 a.m. yesterday, when one man accused another of giving him a cold.

"He (the victim) said, 'You got any of those (cold) pills? Gimme one of those pills because you gave me this cold," she recalled, adding he spoke in a loud voice and everybody on the bus - more than 15 people - likely heard him.

Gallinger said the two men, who boarded the westbound bus at the same stop - near Scotia Place on Jasper Avenue - seemed to know each other, although they were sitting a few seats apart in the front half of the bus.

The other man refused to give him any cold pills. "He said, 'F--- you. Go f--- yourself. Keep bugging me and you're going to get stabbed, buddy,'" Gallinger recalled.

It was about that time that the bus driver calmly warned the two not to start anything, Gallinger said.

The victim addressed the bus driver as "sir" and pleaded that he wasn't trying to start anything, Gallinger said.

But the other man wasn't calming down.

"He said (to the victim), 'Yeah, that's it, you're getting stabbed. You're not making it to work today,' " Gallinger recalled. "He was clearly threatening him."

Gallinger said she was annoyed and loudly announced to the bus driver that she wanted to get off at the next stop.

Before she exited, Gallinger said she scolded the bus driver for not doing more to quell the "unacceptable behaviour," something she now regrets.

ETS officials say the bus driver, who later summoned help, followed security procedures perfectly.

Gallinger got off at 105 Street and walked the two blocks west on Jasper toward her workplace.

Moments later, the slow-moving trolley bus pulled over at a bus stop just east of 107 avenue. As Gallinger approached, she saw the two men "fly off the bus."

Ron Gabruck, ETS security operations co-ordinator, said "they willingly exited the bus on their own accord" after the driver told them to settle down.

Gallinger watched in horror as one of the men attacked the other in a brief one-sided confrontation.

"I could just see this arm over and over again. ... That poor guy," she said.

"I don't think the guy had even an opportunity to defend himself."

Gallinger walked past the assailant, who "sauntered" east along Jasper.

"I'm thinking, 'You son of a bitch.' "

She continued toward the victim, who was struggling in a pool of blood on the snow-covered sidewalk as a crowd of onlookers and bus passengers gathered.

"He was hunched over and he kept trying to pull his duffel bag toward him," Gallinger said through tears. "He was looking at me and he couldn't talk.

"There was blood pooling under him - a big pool of blood."

Police arrived less than a minute later and the crowd of witnesses pointed in the direction of the suspect. Cops arrested a man near the entrance to an LRT tunnel at 104 Street and Jasper.

Brendan Lee Jeffery, 27, is charged with second-degree murder and possession of a dangerous weapon.

Police were still trying to identify the victim late yesterday.

"He was just a guy trying to get to work with a cold," Gallinger said. "It just sucks."