Elderly man dies and three people hurt after ‘stabbing’ in Co-op store in Welsh village
Written by News on 06/05/2020
An elderly man has died and three other people have been injured after a reported stabbing in a Co-op store in a South Wales village.
A 29-year-old woman has been arrested on suspicion of murder and is in custody.
Officers were called shortly after 1.45pm to the incident at the convenience store in Pen Y Graig, Rhondda Valley.
Witnesses described seeing people running from the shop after an apparent knife attack.
Kenan Bastug, who was working in his brother’s kebab shop one door down from the Co-op, said a woman ran into their premises at around 1.50pm saying she had been stabbed in the neck.
He said: “The woman, she ran from Co-op and she came to my nephew and said to put down the shutters. He called the ambulance and the police.
“I came downstairs. The woman had been stabbed in the neck. She was about 45 or 50. She was shocked and didn’t talk.”
Mr Bastug said armed police were on the street.
An unnamed witness said: “I just saw a hat and cans on the floor outside the Co-op as I was pulling up and thought ‘That’s strange’, then paramedics arrived.”
Ravi Raj, manager at the local post office, said the scene had been blocked off quickly by officers.
“The police arrested [the suspect]. I wasn’t inside the shop but I walked down the road when the people were running out,” he said.
South Wales Police said an elderly man died, another man was in a stable condition at the University Hospital of Wales in Cardiff, and two other people suffered non life-threatening injuries.
A Welsh Ambulance Service spokesman said: “We sent one rapid response vehicle, three emergency ambulances, two advanced paramedic practitioners and our hazardous area response team, who were supported by an air ambulance.”
He said four people were taken to the University Hospital of Wales and the Royal Glamorgan Hospital.
Leanne Wood, Plaid Cymru assembly ember for Rhondda, said: “Most of the people in our small, close-knit community of Pen Y Graig will be left feeling shocked after the news tonight of a serious incident, a violent incident in our local Co-op.
“This is the shop that is my local grocery shop, it’s the shop that my family use to do most of our shopping in.”
South Wales Police has referred the incident to the police watchdog, the Independent Office of Police Conduct.
(c) Sky News 2020: Elderly man dies and three people hurt after ‘stabbing’ in Co-op store in Welsh village
