Armed man charged with assault after 'chaos' breaks out inside Winnipeg animal hospital

A 27-year-old Brandon man is in custody after he allegedly entered a Winnipeg animal hospital while armed with a knife and tried to stab staff members.

Jennifer Laferriere told CBC News she was at the Animal Hospital of Manitoba on Main Street in Winnipeg Thursday morning for a routine checkup with her cats when a man walked in brandishing a knife.

Laferriere said she was in the examination room of the hospital waiting on the veterinarian when she heard yelling outside the room.

"I was terrified because the door was shut, I had kittens running round the room and I couldn't see what was going on, I could only hear it and it wasn't good," Laferriere told Up to Speed guest host Cory Funk on Friday.

"I heard screams … and I really thought somebody had been attacked."

In a news release on Friday that did not specify the location of the incidents, Winnipeg police said officers were called to a location on Main after reports a man armed with a knife entered a business shortly before 10 a.m.

Police said a distressed man tried to stab an employee and was still there when officers arrived. Four females had locked themselves inside different rooms inside the business.

The man had locked the front doors and refused to comply with officers who directed him from outside to drop the knife, police said. Then, then man started to harm himself.

He fired a fire extinguisher toward officers as they got inside, police said, and the officers in turn fired mace and a Taser at the suspect.

He was arrested and taken to hospital for treatment for his self-inflicted wounds, according to police.

Laferriere said police arrived soon after she heard the first screams. Knowing officers were on scene was reassuring, but she said they had to break a window to get inside and arrest the man.

"It was a few minutes of chaos out there," said Laferriere.

Animals exposed to the mace and discharge from the fire extinguisher were taken out of the building, police said.

The man has been charged with three counts of assault with a weapon, assaulting a peace officer, resisting arrest and mischief under $5,000.

The man remains in custody.