Kamloops senior couple Graham E. Reid (left) and Susan Reichennek are recovering after Reid was attacked by a stranger in Kamloops.
Image Credit: SUBMITTED/Susan Reichennek
May 25, 2023 - 7:00 AM
A senior is recovering at home from injuries he sustained in an attack by an unknown man on Kamloops’s north shore late last week.
Graham E. Reid, 70, was walking his dog near his home at Library Square around 7 p.m. Thursday, May 18, when a stranger yelled at him, punched him and pushed him against a wall, leaving him with a concussion and deep tissue bruising on his leg and hip.
“The guy was screaming at him, telling him to laugh,” Reid’s wife Susan Reichennek, who is speaking on his behalf, said. “My husband ignored it, tried to keep walking, but the guy walked up, punched him in the chest twice. My husband fell to the ground and hit his head.”
Reichennek said community service officers (formerly bylaw officers) close by “got the guy” and called police who arrested the attacker. An ambulance was called for Reid, who was experiencing chest pain. Three weeks ago he had a heart attack and heart surgery. Medics determined Reid was OK and sent him home with anti-inflammatories. The following night the couple went to the hospital when Reid was having chest, neck and shoulder pain and “luckily, everything was alright.”
Reichennek said over the sixty years she’s lived here she’s “never seen the city so bad,” and no longer feels safe in her community.
“I want to have compassion and have gone to bat for the homeless and addicted, but I fear I’m losing that, or I’m frustrated with the system,” she said.
She said she’s afraid to walk the dog by herself, and since the attack her husband is too.
“There’s a corner near home where you see people passed out and my husband’s called paramedics a couple of times,” Reichennek said. “Sirens go by all day and all night, it’s no longer a quiet area to live. These people are not all bad and going to attack but you don’t know who’ll freak out at you.”
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Reichennek wants to see three-tiered programs put in place for the addicted homeless and mentally ill where they can go through detox and level up learning basic life skills, hygiene and work skills for those who are able, until they “graduate” into lower income housing.
“I’ve seen the city at its most beautiful and I’m seeing it at its worst,” she said. “We need to get council moving and some great programs going. It’s a shame to just let it go like this.”
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Kamloops RCMP spokesperson Cpl. Crystal Evelyn confirmed a file has been opened in connection to the incident.
“On May 18, 2023, just before 7 p.m., Kamloops RCMP frontline officers were called to the 700 block of Tranquille Road in Kamloops for a report of a disturbance and an assault,” Cpl. Evelyn said in an email to iNFOnews.ca.
“Officers located and arrested a suspect near Sydney Avenue and Fortune Drive. He was lodged in cells until sober and later released with conditions and a court date, with charge recommendations anticipated as part of the assessment and approval process.”
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