The witness who reported the aggravated assault on Highway 601 to the RCMP on Oct. 6 and was subsequently charged apparently for providing false information to the police came out with the following letter to apologize to the community and explain his reasons for giving the wrong information.
His name is withheld upon his request.
I am the witness that reported a violent assault on Highway 601, west of the 835 junction to the Stettler RCMP.
At this point in time, I am not willing to offer my name, as the man I accused has not been located as of the time of this letter. I am writing to apologize to the citizens of Stettler and Lacombe County, and to a number of the local RCMP members that took part in this case, as I reported that a firearm had been discharged when indeed there likely was no firearm involved. I’d like to take the opportunity to explain how and why I managed to get myself stuck in a fabrication from the truth. As the public deserves to know, here is the story as it really happened.
Traveling eastbound on secondary highway 601, while at work, I approached a vehicle in a pullout on the north side facing west.
The vehicle was a dark red Dodge or Chrysler product, recent model vehicle, perhaps a Charger. A man, mid to late 20s had a lady pinned with is forearm over the hood of the vehicle and was repeatedly punching her in the face. The lady, late teens to early 20s, was silent and fatigued from what I saw to be an inhuman attack, leaving her with bruising all over her face and a laceration on her forehead.
I hollered to the man in an attempt to end the assault. As he gazed at me, he grabbed the woman by her hair, lifting her just to the point that her feet were almost off the ground, and hung her like a trophy facing me as I came to a rolling stop. He then violently threw her into his vehicle from the drivers side, clear across the vehicle, her head landing partially on the passenger side floor, got himself in his vehicle and starting driving west. Driving only to next approach, he then turned around and started chasing me. In his attempts to intimidate me, speeds exceeded 150kph.
We continued east- bound on 601, charging across 835 without even slowing down for the stop sign, I radioed my foreman at work and instructed him to contact the RCMP and advise them of our location.
As the RCMP were talking to my foreman, the man then rolled down his window and rested his arm between the window and driver’s side mirror. I believed at this point that he had a gun, and was about to fire at me. I radioed my foreman again saying “He’s gonna take a shot at me?”, my foreman replying, “He took a shot at you?” not hearing me well over the mike phones. This is where I made a mistake and strayed from the truth.
In that moment, I thought to myself that if I didn’t correct my foreman and left it assumed that I’d been shot at, I would get ten cops out here to help the girl, and me now, rather than one. As it turns out, there was no shot fired at me. It was just some lunatic likely flipping me the bird, and I am left sitting here a week later to think about how I caused a panic in our communities, and wasted the resources of the RCMP. So I acknowledge that today, and publicly apologize to the public that took heart in this case, to the media covering this case, and to the RCMP and their resources. I accept the charges that have been placed on me.
With that said, however, I want to challenge the communities to take assaults like this more seriously. Personally, I wouldn’t slap a fly off my wife’s leg in fear of hurting her. Any man, in every case, I believe, should he decide to assault a woman in that manner, should be treated as if he had a gun pointed to her head by the RCMP. To look into that woman’s eyes, and see her silently screaming for help is a sight and I cannot erase from my mind.
Assault to a woman by a man is cowardly, and pathetic, and deserving of stronger penalties. It was wrong of me to get this kind of attention to this case by misleading the police, but I’m hopeful this letter will help explain why I did it. She wanted help; I could see that. I just wanted her to get the very best help.
Although they have not been located, I can at least go to bed knowing that I got her all the help I could. Even if it did her no good