Cindy MacDougall
Northern News Services

Yellowknife (Mar 08/00) - Chris Green, his upper arm bandaged and his back still covered with dried blood, starts to shake as he describes the stabbing attack he endured Tuesday morning.

At 2:30 a.m., a man came to the living room window of the Yellowknife Home for the Homeless and asked to be let in, Green said.

The man was drunk, so Green, the only staff on duty, said he refused to open the door.

"The next thing I heard, someone was breaking into the window downstairs," he said. "I went to take care of it, but I wasn't expecting him to have a knife."

For two-and-a-half hours, the knife-wielding man kept Green downstairs, threatening to kill the shelter worker.

Terrified for his life and concerned about the safety of the 10 people asleep upstairs, Green said he kept quiet and tried to talk the man down.

"He had a big knife and was swinging it at me," Green said. "I tried to talk him into giving up the knife, I said 'you don't have to go this route.'

"He said it was too late."

At about 5 a.m., Green said the man heard someone moving upstairs.

"He said, 'It's too late. I've gotta kill you," Green said. "I was tired of being scared. I took a chair and fought him off.

"The first time he stabbed me through the arm," Green said, pointing to the white bandage on his right arm, tears rolling down his face.

"I ran upstairs, and he stabbed me twice in the back, my lower back. And he stabbed me in the knee."

Green managed to shut the door to the upstairs living room, preventing his attacker from entering, while shelter residents pressed towels onto his wounds.

The police and an ambulance were called and a male suspect was arrested at the scene and remains in custody.

Green was taken to Stanton Regional Hospital, treated and released.

Yellowknife RCMP Cpl. Greg Brown said charges are pending against the suspect.

However, Brown said police cannot give further information until charges are laid.

The shelter's head supervisor, Ernie Glowach, said the residents and staff will meet tonight to discuss what happened.

He said violence at the shelter has been rare since a few problems when it first opened in October 1998.

"But we haven't had a problem in a long time because we got rid of the troublemakers," Glowach said.

Green said the man who attacked him needs help.

"There's something in him that's not right," he said. "I've been there. I know.

"I thought I could help him, but I guess I couldn't."