Glen Warner was punched after asking a man not to smoke in Riverside Park.

Image Credit: FACEBOOK / Jason Warner

For 71-year old Glen Warner, working as a security guard at Kamloops’ iconic Riverside Park has been, well, a walk in the park.

That changed when he was assaulted five days ago.

Jason Warner, Glen’s son, says his dad was called over to help a City staff member when a man was smoking in the park and would not extinguish his cigarette.

“The city worker called him over and said, 'can you deal with him?' So dad approached him the same away he would approach anyone, pretty calm and asked him to move on and the guy called him an effing goof and said, ‘what are you going to do about it, old man?’ He punched him in the face and then took off,” Jason said.

The assault in Riverside Park happened during the afternoon of July 2, and left Warner with a broken orbital bone, temporary vision impairment and a concussion. He’ll have to have surgery to have a metal plate placed in his face where the bone was broken.

“It didn’t really phase me at all except for the fact I had a concussion, that rattled my brain a little bit. Other than that it was nothing. I’m pretty well levelled so it takes a lot more than this to bother me,” Glen says.

Glen has been living in Kamloops for the past five years and has been happily working as a security guard at Riverside Park since December.

“The visitors, you see them right away because they stop and read the sign. So I’ll approach them and I’ll tell them, ‘Welcome to Kamloops Riverside Park, this is the crown jewel of Kamloops for parks,’” Glen says. “It’s just a wonderful place. There’s a lot of things, and like any family always has issues and they have to be dealt with, there’s issues in Kamloops that have to be dealt with."

Although he’ll be undergoing surgery today, July 7, he says he plans to return to work as soon as he is recovered.

“I’ve been in Riverside Park since December and over time I’ve gained a rapport with the homeless and park people, the general public, regular patrons and so on. Every given day, I have two or three people at least that visit me and want to chat, see how I’m doing. It’s also the same with some of the homeless people and they do the same. If they see me on the street downtown they wave at me and say hi, so it’s like having extended family and this is not going to deter me.”

The Warners say they’ve had some difficulty and confusion with police when it came to identifying and arresting the suspect, but they hope that sharing photos of the suspect will help to find him.

Kamloops RCMP said Tuesday night they have arrested a 33-year-old Surrey man who is being held in custody. Charges are pending.

— Updated July 8 at 7:36 a.m. to include the arrest. 

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