'It was the scariest moment of my life': Vancouver woman describes being chased by a stranger

A Vancouver woman is speaking out about her terrifying experience of being chased by a stranger downtown.

Myriam Denis said she was walking her dog in Yaletown just before 3 p.m. on Monday. She had headphones on and was listening to a podcast, but said she could hear screaming and loud noises behind her.

“I look around and I see a man that seemed very crazy, very angry, just very mad and he was yelling very loudly,” Denis said. “He keeps yelling and he’s yelling and looking at me.”

Denis said she avoided eye contact and walked faster but the man started running toward her, while yelling.

“It was all a bunch of sentences that were disjointed … at one point he said, 'You’re going to remember me,'” she said. “It was super scary because you never know what is going on in someone's head. At this point I was just feeling really uneasy and was thinking about the recent stabbings that have happened downtown.”

Denis started to run while screaming, “Help, help I need help, there’s a man after me.” Another woman on the sidewalk started running with her and they both went inside a nail salon for safety, but the man followed them inside. Two men who happened to be there blocked the suspect from reaching Denis while staff called 911. The man then took off.

“It was the scariest moment of my life and it’s the first time something like that happened to me,” Denis said. “My heart was definitely racing. My hands were shaking.”

Denis managed to take two photos of the suspect. In one image, he appears to be holding something in his hand.

“It looked a little bit like a knife or part of a brass knuckle, but maybe it was a big ring,” she said.

Vancouver police spokesperson Sgt. Steve Addison confirmed officers attended and they are looking into it.

“It’s obviously a very frightening encounter,” Addison said. “She did everything right. She felt unsafe, she went to a place of safety, she contacted the police and we were able to send officers to investigate.”

Addison said even though the threshold of arrests or charges may not be met in incidents like this, police still want to hear about them, in case the suspect is a repeat offender.

“What we’re seeing more and more … we’re seeing the same person who’s responsible for multiple offences,” he said. “We want to know about it so we can find out who that person is. Could they be responsible for other incidents that have happened?”

Vancouver has seen multiple incidents of stranger attacks in the past year, some incredibly violent. For Denis, who lives downtown, she believes it’s something voters should think about leading up to the fall election.

“I think it’s the number one issue right now for the municipal election,” she said.