Neighbours worry after Vancouver assault suspect released to their building

Global News

30-04-2025

Residents of a South Vancouver housing co-op say they're concerned the suspect in the random attack of a tourist on the city's seawall is being released to live in their building.
Meanwhile, others, including the suspect's family, are wondering why he was released from custody following an alleged domestic violence incident two days before the assault, when they say he needed help for his mental illness.
'If he can't go home to his wife and children, why can he come here where there are children?' asked housing co-op resident Roxanne Sukhan.
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Sukhan lives on the same floor of the building as assault suspect Peterhans Nungu's mother, Nungu Magdalene.
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Magdalene has mobility challenges, and Sukhan is concerned she will not be supported in the court-ordered decision for her 34-year-old son to live with her under strict conditions, including 24/7 house arrest.
'I get the balance, you don't want to lock everyone up,' said Sukhan. 'If he decided to stop taking his medications and he became belligerent, how will she manage that? How is she going to make him do anything?'
Magdalene told Global News that on April 13, Nungu, who was being treated in the community as an outpatient after experiencing a mental health crisis a year earlier, was agitated and off his medications while at home with his wife and three children.
She said his family called police for help.
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The Surrey Police Service said the RCMP Surrey Provincial Operations Support Unit attended a residence regarding threats between a man and a woman.
Nungu was arrested and charged with uttering threats to cause death or bodily harm and damage property, as well as with assaulting a peace officer.
He was released from custody on April 14 on six conditions – including no contact with two alleged victims, and staying away from his home in Surrey.
'He's supposed to be in the hospital not in the jail,' Magdalene told Global News in an interview on Thursday. 'He was released and thrown to the streets with a restriction not to go to his house.'
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Hours later, Nungu was arrested again and charged with assault causing bodily harm after a Toronto woman was attacked on the Vancouver seawall near Stanley Park just after midnight on April 15.
'We are all devastated,' Magdalene said. 'We are all broken down mentally.'
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Surrey-Cloverdale Conservative MLA Elenore Sturko, who serves as B.C.'s opposition public safety critic, wonders if opportunities to intervene were missed – given the family's indications that Nungu was in a mental health crisis and no longer taking medications for his mental illness.
'It certainly begs the question why in the first instance wasn't a mental assessment taken then,' Sturko told Global News Tuesday.
'Some people fall through the cracks, unfortunately,' said Amanda Butler, an assistant professor with SFU's criminology department.
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Butler told Global News the options for judges in cases like this are limited.
'The Mental Health Act is a health system law, it's not a criminal justice system tool,' she said in an interview on Tuesday.
Butler said judges can ask for an accused to undergo a psychiatric assessment at a bail hearing but it's quite rare, and almost exclusively occurs in cases where a person may not be fit to stand trial or is a potential candidate for an application to be declared not criminally responsible by way of a mental disorder (NCRMD).
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The vast majority of people with mental illnesses will go through the regular court system Butler said, and she would love to see more comprehensive psych assessments at the bail stage of the criminal justice system.
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She added that while judges can include conditions related to mental health in their release orders, for example, to attend counselling, they cannot force an involuntary hospitalization under the Mental Health Act.
'The reality is that for a very, very small portion of people who have a mental illness, their mental health issues intersect with their criminal justice needs and we don't have great intersection between those systems,' Butler said.
Magdalene said she was surprised to get a call on the morning of April 15 alerting her that her son was in jail again when she thought he would have been taken to the hospital for help.
'Now I'm so devastated about all what happened because he was not taken at the right time to the mental hospital,' Magdalene told Global News Thursday.
In a recent TikTok video, the tourist who Nungu is accused of assaulting said she hopes he adheres to his strict bail conditions and gets the resources and support he needs.
'And I hope that no one else is harmed, including his own family,' she stated.