Cape Town – A 47-year-old man has been arrested for allegedly stabbing a 5-year-old boy in the chest while he was shopping with his mother at the Waterstone Village Mall in Somerset West on Monday.
“The circumstances surrounding an assault with the aim of doing grievous bodily harm are being investigated by Somerset West SAPS. The incident occurred at 9.15am while a mother and her two children were walking in the Waterstone Village Mall.
“Both children were inside a shopping trolley, with the 5-year-old boy sitting in the front. The assailant walked towards the trolley, took out a knife and stabbed the boy in the chest.
"The mother intervened with security officials helping to apprehend the assailant. The baby was unharmed,” said police spokesperson Hein Hendricks.
A shocked witness detailed the incident on Facebook: “By the grace of God the perpetrator apprehended. Small boy stabbed with knife. Everyone badly shaken up here. Boy okay, though, and receiving medical attention.”
The Helderberg Basin News Facebook page lauded the security guards who apprehended the individual.
“I just want to praise the reaction of the Waterstone Security for their incredible reaction.
“He recognised the man and was just in time to see the man approaching the child that was with his mother, and took him down as he was about to stab this child.
“The knife did touch the boy, but with the force of the take-down, the knife was averted from the boy and he was slightly cut. The mother of this child remarked that, ‘if it was not for your guard, my child would have been dead’.”