'He was like a zombie'

Photo: CTV

Employees at a grocery store in Surrey told a coroner's inquest Monday that they watched a man repeatedly stab himself with stolen paring knives minutes before he was shot by transit police.

Naverone Woods, 23, was shot inside the Safeway by officers on the morning of Dec. 28, 2014, and died after he was taken to hospital.

Glen Gorgas, the manager of the meat department, said he watched helplessly as the shirtless young man stabbed himself.

"It was almost like he was in a catatonic state, like he was a zombie," he told the inquest.

"You could tell he was really hurt. I wanted to go right up to him and help, but he had two knives in his hand."

Transit police told the man several times to drop the knives before he was shot, Gorgas said.

The Independent Investigations Office, which investigates serious cases involving police, cleared officers of any wrongdoing in May 2016. The coroner's service holds an inquest into every police-involved death in an effort to make recommendations aimed at preventing similar fatalities.

Michael Patron, the store's loss-prevention officer, told the coroner's jury on the first day of testimony that he began following Woods because he seemed "out of sorts."

Woods went directly to the back of the store, he said, and ripped open a package of knives. Woods held a knife in each hand and wandered the aisles, stabbing himself in the abdomen between 12 and 20 times before police arrived, Patron said.