Kirsten Larsen
Northern News Services

NNSL (Feb 10/99) - A 20-year-old Yellowknife man who received multiple stab wounds during a confrontation at Northern United Place early Sunday morning remains in the intensive care unit at Stanton Regional Hospital.

A 22-year-old Yellowknife man has been charged with attempted murder and aggravated assault after the 20-year-old received three stab wounds to his torso and a slash to his arm with a knife following a fight that started around 2 a.m.

The fight broke out in the lobby of the building and moved outside where the victim was stabbed.

The victim's father told Yellowknifer that his son did not know the assailant and had been with a friend when he entered the building with the intention of visiting a resident of the building. He said that a confrontation broke out between his son and three or four individuals unknown to his son that were in the lobby of the building.

The father, who doesn't want his identity known, said the confrontation became physical and one of the individuals pulled a knife on his son, slashing and stabbing him in the torso area with the last stab entering his back.

"One of his lungs was collapsed, his diaphragm was torn and his liver was nicked," said the father.

"The knife was still lodged in his back when they took him to hospital. It (the knife) was buried to the handle and lodged in one of his (vertebrae) disks."

The 20-year-old, who was still recovering in the intensive care unit at Stanton on Tuesday, was reported in stable condition.

"He's doing very good now, but he's very angry," said the victims father. "He doesn't understand why it happened and why a knife had to be involved in a simple confrontation."

Cpl. Mike Brandford of the Yellowknife RCMP said that police were unaware that a knife was involved in the fight when they were first alerted to the situation by a caller who was complaining of a disturbance in the building. RCMP responded immediately but the 20-year-old had already been stabbed upon their arrival.

Following an investigation, 22-year-old Arthur Thor Gonzales was arrested and charged with one count of attempted murder and one count of aggravated assault.

Gonzales was remanded into custody and appeared in territorial court before Michel Bourassa Feb. 9. Gonzales, who remains in custody, is scheduled to appear for a show cause hearing in territorial court on Feb. 16.