VANCOUVER -- A 35-year-old man has been arrested for allegedly assaulting and threatening employees in a downtown Vancouver grocery store Friday afternoon, according to Vancouver police.
The incident happened just before 5 p.m. at the IGA on Robson Street, near Richards Street, police told CTV News Vancouver in an email.
Video of the incident shared on Reddit (warning: link contains profanity) begins with an altercation near the store's entrance. A man can be heard yelling profanity at the store's staff, and there is a loud crash.
Later in the video, a man can be seen farther inside the store, swinging what appears to be a small pipe at other people in the store, including one person in an IGA hat.
People in the store can be seen wrestling the man to the ground, and he can be heard shouting that the store's staff started the altercation and that he is acting in self-defence.
The man is not wearing a face mask, but it's not clear from the video whether B.C.'s mask mandate is a reason for the altercation.
At the end of the video, police arrive and handcuff the man, telling him he's under arrest.
Vancouver Police Department spokesperson Const. Tania Visintin told CTV News in an email that the man was arrested for assault with a weapon, uttering threats and mischief.
"He allegedly struck one employee in the head, threatened a second employee, and smashed a number of flower pots," Visintin said. "One of the staff members was injured."
Visintin noted that VPD officers are no strangers to the grocery store where the incident happened.
"Unfortunately, this family-run business has been hit quite hard by violence in recent years, and their staff are dealing with this kind of thing on a daily basis," she said.
