Man pleads guilty to aggravated assault for NYE stabbing

A man arrested after a stabbing outside a north-end pub on New Year’s Eve has pled guilty to aggravated assault.

Jerrad Wayne Schneider, 32, entered the plea Friday morning in Medicine Hat provincial court after several months of delays, as defence attorneys and prosecutors said they were working on a resolution.

A pre-sentencing report was ordered before a sentencing hearing, tentatively set for Sept. 14.

An agreed statement of facts presented Friday alongside the plea lays out the events of Dec. 31, 2016.

At about 10:40 p.m. that night, police responded to a call from a pub on 20th Street NE about a dispute in the bar that continued outside.

The statement reads that Schneider and a women he was with got into an altercation with staff at the bar after they were found kissing in the women’s washroom. The couple, admittedly drunk and on drugs, then got into an argument with a second woman outside when a 37-year-old man intervened saying “it’s New Year’s, just go.”

The verbal confrontation escalated when, according to Schneider’s statement, his female acquaintance moved to kick the man in the groin. He turned away, but was stabbed in the back by Schneider, who used a knife he carried.

He fled, throwing the knife in a nearby yard en route to a nearby residence where he was arrested.

The man who was stabbed suffered a two-inch deep wound near the middle of his back. He was evaluated that night at Medicine Hat Regional Hospital where surgery discovered the wound had missed vital organs.

He left hospital on Jan. 2 against doctor’s orders and returned to work shortly afterwards. He will require one more surgery to remove a mass of scar tissue, has had some movement limitations and experiences paranoia in public places, according to court documents.

A woman from Calgary was also arrested during the incident and charged with two counts of common assault and released on bail in early January.

The evening turned out to be one of the busiest in terms of serious incidents for the Medicine Hat Police Service in recent memory.

In an unrelated incident across town, police also responded to a report of gunshots that resulted in a homicide investigation.