Two Duncan women who were accosted by a stranger at the Cowichan Sportsplex are cautioning other people, and women in particular, to be careful in the area.
“I don’t want it to happen to other people,” said Sheena Davies, who was with her friend Arlene Sorenson when the incident took place. “People should be aware this is happening. It’s our right to be out walking at 8:30. All I know is that it was extremely frightening to us and it shook us up.”
Davies and Sorenson were returning to their cars after a walk with their dogs at the Sportsplex on the evening of Jan. 23 when they spotted a man at the entrance to the parking lot, who appeared to be “either mentally ill or on drugs.”
Sorenson was concerned immediately.
“We have to get in our cars right now,” Davies recalled Sorenson saying.
“As soon as he saw us moving, he ran over to our vehicles,” Sorenson recalled.
The man ran in their direction, “screaming and yelling, acting completely crazy,” and threw his backpack, with a metal thermos attached, at the car, just missing the window of Davies’s vehicle as she drove away. Davies believes the thermos would have shattered her window if it had connected.
The women were grateful to have been so close to their vehicles when the man saw them.
“We were really worried about what would have happened if we weren’t near our cars,” Sorenson said.
They drove around the corner to Alexander Elementary School, where they called the police from the parking lot. Officers responded quickly and, with Davies and Sorenson’s help, managed to find the man hiding in the Sportsplex bleachers. He was handcuffed and searched for drugs, as the police “could tell he was probably on something,” but nothing was found on him, and he was released.
After the scary experience, Davies and Sorenson hoped nothing worse happened to someone else.
“We were afraid that he was going to approach another person, another woman,” Sorenson said. “We were scared that he was looking for someone to do something bad to.”
Davies went home and wrote about the incident on the Cowichan Moms Swap ‘n Shop Facebook page, and the post drew a swift reaction.
“Several other people wrote that they’d had similar experiences,” Davies said.
Among them was Sarah Rice, who said she had been at the Sportsplex that night and saw the same man, feeling similarly uncomfortable.
“It was a little devastating to hear that the police picked him up and released him immediately,” Rice said.
Rice got in her vehicle and drove away, only to have a similar incident at the intersection of Coronation Avenue and the Trans-Canada Highway. A different man was heading from the southwest corner of the intersection to the southeast corner, and walked out into traffic, “acting erratically.” He crossed again to the northeast corner, moving in front of Rice’s vehicle.
“He started lunging at me like he was going to come at me, throwing his hands in the air,” she recalled. “He looked psychotic.”
Another truck with two men in it pulled up and scared the man away.
“It wasn’t the same guy [as Davies and Sorenson ran into at the Sportsplex], but what went through my mind was that the two of them were probably meeting up,” Rice said. “This is obviously a place where people on drugs are meeting. Why are they meeting there? I don’t feel safe there at all.”
Davies wondered if the Sportsplex could hire more security or improve lighting at the facility.
“I feel women should have a safe place to walk around in Duncan,” she said.
Sportsplex executive director Catherine Brandon hadn’t heard about Davies’s and Sorenson’s encounter, but was concerned when asked about it.
“If anyone ever feels threatened at or around the Sportsplex, we have staff here almost every day of the year, both in our office and on the grounds,” Brandon said. “If there is something illegal or threatening going on, we are definitely interested in knowing about it. We want to help to be part of the solution to some of the problems in and around that area with people who are down and out and maybe need the support of the community.”
The Sportsplex keeps the lights on all night, Brandon noted, but there aren’t any plans to add lighting or security personnel.
“This time of year, with the days getting longer, our staff are there longer hours,” she said. “It’s quite a safe place to be because of the numbers of people.”
