On a family trip to Torch Lake, Chris O’Brien went to Walmart for some fishing poles and pop. But he left as a witness to a mass stabbing.
“We just went there to grab some things and be on our way, then absolute terror happened,” said O’Brien, 43, of Sparta.
He was the man who took a widely circulating video of citizens containing the suspect in a July 26 stabbing at Walmart in Traverse City that left 11 people injured. In it, people surrounding the suspect yell to drop the knife, which he appears to do.
Minutes before the video starts, O’Brien and his brother-in-law, Matt Kolakowski, 39, were at the checkout near the entrance with Kolakowski’s daughter and her friend when he said they heard someone screaming, “He’s got a knife.”
O’Brien and Kolakowski, a Marine veteran, told the girls to stay inside, then headed toward the scene.
Kolakowski, who can be seen in the video with no shoes and wearing a purple shirt, grabbed a shopping cart on the way to the scene, and O’Brien said they saw the guy stab two people as they moved towards him.
O’Brien said Kolakowski used the shopping cart to hit the suspect, who police later named as Bradford James Gille. Another person with a shopping cart cornered the suspect before the suspect ran between two cars.
That’s when the “big relief” of a person with the gun showed up and “de-escalated the scenario,” O’Brien said.
O’Brien said he started recording for video proof after thinking that the suspect might be shot and killed.
“What was going through my head is, ‘I hope I don’t die,’” O’Brien said.
Walmart employee: in recalling stabbing spree: ‘I still can’t believe this happened’
O’Brien said the group of citizens didn’t know each other until working together in the 3 to 5 minutes of chaos it took to stop the stabbing.
“It was, it was a great team effort between all the guys involved,” O’Brien said. “None want the shining light. We’re absorbing it, but it’s not anything wanted. They did very well as a team. We weren’t going to stop. The guy was not getting away. My brother-in-law expected to get stabbed.”
After the incident, O’Brien said he found out the suspect was in the store for 30 minutes before the stabbing. While shopping around the store earlier, his niece and her friend were in a different section than Kolakowski and O’Brien.
“We had them in harm’s way (unknowingly),” O’Brien said. “Anything could have happened. We could have gotten stabbed.”
Though he and his brother-in-law told the girls to stay in the store and out of the parking lot, he said they ended up going out to the truck and calling the rest of the family back at the hotel.
After the incident, they said they were at Walmart for another hour, giving a police statement. O’Brien said he thought three people had been stabbed and didn’t realize it was 11.
“It was crazier to us when we heard chaos break out for 10 seconds in the store,” he said. “We didn’t know if he stabbed random people throughout store. We don’t know how it all happened.”
O’Brien said he didn’t realize this would be a national story.
“It seems like a massive deal, and it is a terrible thing, we get it, but we see other terrible things that don’t get the stories,” he said. “We wondered if it was a terrorist attack. We have no idea.”
O’Brien said he was surprised this happened, but he won’t let it deter him from returning to the area.
“Nothing about this makes sense,” O’Brien said. “Why did he go off that deep end to do this?”
The suspect, Bradford James Gille, was arraigned on one count of felony terrorism and 11 counts of assault with intent to murder in the 86th District Court in Grand Traverse County on July 28.
As of the morning of July 28, one victim of the stabbing remains in serious condition, while five victims are in fair condition, two patients are in good condition, two patients were treated and transferred and one patient was treated and released from the hospital, according to Munson Healthcare.
Contact Natalie Davies at ndavies@freepress.com.
This article originally appeared on Detroit Free Press: Walmart mass stabbing witness: ‘Team effort’ contained suspect