OAN Staff Blake Wolf
1:58 PM – Sunday, July 27, 2025
11 individuals were stabbed in a Michigan Walmart on Saturday afternoon, before being detained by a few Marines and bystanders.
The suspect, identified as 42-year-old Bradford James Gille, is expected to face terrorism and assault charges for the “random” stabbing attack, according to authorities.
Gille allegedly entered the Walmart in Traverse City, Michigan, at around 4:10 p.m. on Saturday, and attacked shoppers and one employee with a “folding knife” at around 4:45 p.m. in the checkout area of the store, according to the Grand Traverse County Sheriff’s Office.
Law enforcement responded within three minutes of an emergency 911 call, while a group of bystanders detained Gille in the parking lot.
“I cannot commend everyone that was involved enough. When you stop and look from the time of call to the time of actual custody, the individual was detained within one minute,” stated Grand Traverse County Sheriff Michael Shea. “That is remarkable. When you look at it in that mitigated Lord knows how many additional victims.”
Shea went on to reveal that the motive of the suspect is currently unclear, although Gille had “prior assaultive incidents as well as controlled substance violations.”
Shea added that the 11 victims were both men and women, ranging in age from 29 to 84 years old.
7 victims were in fair condition, and 4 victims were in serious condition, according to Munson Healthcare.
“Over the past 12 hours, we’ve seen encouraging signs of recovery among our patients,” the hospital announced in an update.
Meanwhile, Grand Traverse County Prosecutor Noelle Moeggenberg explained that the reason for seeking the terrorism charge was due to the intent to harm the community.
“It’s something that is done not to individual people, not to those individual victims — obviously they are most affected — but it is we believe in some and some ways done to affect the entire community, to put fear in the entire community and to change how maybe we operate on a daily basis,” Moeggenberg stated. “So that is why we are looking at that terrorism charge.”
Additionally, 39-year-old Matt Kolakowski, a former U.S. Marine, stopped at the Walmart for weekend supplies while on a family vacation with his brother-in-law and his daughter to pick up supplies when the stabbing occurred.
Kolakowski, speaking with CNN, recounted his instincts kicking in after he heard a store employee yell, “He’s got a knife!”
Kolakowski ordered his daughter to stay put while he chased after the suspect with his brother-in-law.
“I thought to myself, ‘Well, I don’t got no weapon, so what am I going to do?’ So, I just grabbed an empty grocery cart and just took off after him as hard as I could,” he stated.
Kolakowski stated that the suspect stabbed a man and an elderly woman while fleeing from the store.
Kolakowski was eventually able to ram the suspect with the shopping cart before he bolted while Kolakowski and other bystanders chased him through the parking lot.
“He was screaming something about him being a soldier, and that everybody in Walmart were bad people,” Kolakowski continued. “His eyes were just bulging out of his head.”
Kolakowski added that another individual identified as Derrick Perry, whom he later learned is also a Marine, pulled out a gun, prompting the suspect to drop the knife.
“The other Marine told me that he just went shooting at a range, and he forgot to take his pistol off his hip,” he stated. “I just turned into somebody that I haven’t been in a long time and just stayed on top of him until the deputy ran up and jumped on top of him with a rifle in his face, and I helped the deputy arrest him.”
Kolakowski added that he informed the officer that he was a former Marine, which prompted the officer to hand him med-packs to assist in treating the individuals wounded from the stabbing attacks.
“It was just mass panic in the parking lot – ambulances, lights everywhere, sirens everywhere, blood everywhere, people getting loaded up on carts, put in ambulances,” he recalled.
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