TRAVERSE CITY, Mich. — It was a seemingly normal Saturday for Julia Martell, who was browsing the aisles of her local Walmart with a friend when she heard people screaming.
Still, she didn’t think much of the disturbance, making the assumption that there was a fight a few aisles over. As she turned the corner, she saw a man running down another aisle, and then she saw his knife.
Eleven people ranging in age from 29 to 84 were injured in a stabbing attack at the Traverse City store Saturday, and a suspect was apprehended.
Bradford James Gille, 42, was quickly subdued by other shoppers and taken into custody when a deputy arrived, the Grand Traverse County Sheriff said.
The man barreled past someone else nearby and “angled toward me,” Martell, 32, told NBC News. “And that’s when I booked it down the aisle.”
She said the man looked “crazed” and laser-focused on getting to the store’s exit. She said she doesn’t think she was an intended target, or that she even particularly caught the man’s attention, but that she was uninjured because she got out of the way in time.
Authorities have said Gille acted alone and that the attack appeared to be random without predetermined victims.
Martell stopped running when she found a group of others, which is when she said the fear set in “because I had no idea where the person was.”
“All I know is I saw a knife, and I ran away from the knife, and now I have no idea where the knife is,” Martell said.
“I’m still sitting and grappling with the weight of realizing that it was kind of a life or death moment,” Martell said. She said it’s “surreal” that she was there when it happened, especially in retrospect after seeing all of the news coverage.
“I could have easily been next,” she said.
On her way out of the store, she passed at least two men who had stab wounds. One, she said, was elderly and was complaining about his heart. The other made a joke about needing a Band-Aid.
Officials have said that Good Samaritans in the store subdued the attacker before officers arrived and could arrest him. Martell said that was happening on the other side of the store from where she ended up.
Michael Miller, 34, said he was one of those people.
He, along with his fiancée, Julia Ling, 27, and four of their kids, heard what they described as blood-curdling screams when they walked into the Walmart.
Ling grabbed the young girls and pulled them behind a bread rack. “Anything to block him from them,” she said.
But Miller ran toward the action to help, she said.
Ling said she saw the man stab one victim in the produce section, then another by the self checkout, before he ran toward her and her kids.
“He lunged at us,” she told NBC News. Then, she said, he lunged at Miller, and the group trying to stop the attacker pushed him out the door.
The group outside got the suspect to the ground and Miller called 911, he said.
Officers arrived within minutes, Miller said. Once on scene, he helped the first responders locate all of the injured victims, he said.
Miller said he and some other men around him “reacted at the same time and reacted in the same way,” to the attacker, allowing them to work together to subdue the suspect.
“I think we all saw each other. We all noticed each other and saw what was going on,” Miller said. “I mean, definitely something that I think everybody was kind of in on together.”
Both Miller and Ling called the day’s events a “wake up call” and expressed concern over bringing their kids on errands with them, especially when the other is busy and one of them has to go alone. Ling said she’s already started thinking about making plans to go when Miller is home from work.
But both of them have a little faith in their community after so many bystanders worked together to stop the violence.
Miller “kept saying to me after the fact was, ‘I only did what anybody should have done,'” Ling said.
“It should be that way,” Miller added.
Michigan prosecutors are seeking a terrorism charge against Gille, the suspect, in addition to 11 counts of assault with intent to murder, one for each stabbing victim.
All of the victims received care at Munson Medical Center, where all but one remain hospitalized. Munson Healthcare spokesperson Catherine Dewey said eight of the victims are in fair condition and two are in serious condition. All are expected to survive.
