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“I’m going to miss you. Wish you could stay. My boy. My sunshine. Love you always and forever.”

The incident took place on July 12 inside a Starbucks in Burnaby. Michael Zimeras, 73, was sitting outside when he saw a young man emerge from the coffee shop. The man lit a cigarette and began to pace back and forth, yanking his T-shirt up and down, mumbling and cursing about the government and not being allowed to smoke inside, said Zimeras.

“He was looking very agitated,” he said.

Some time later, the young man approached a woman who was sitting in a parked car outside a nearby bank, said Zimeras, and began yelling that he didn’t want to see her anymore. She tossed a cigarette onto the ground and the young man picked it up and threw it at her through an open window, Zimeras said.

The young man left and went back to the Starbucks, and another man emerged from the bank, said Zimeras. He said the woman told the man what had happened and the man said, “Let’s go and get him.”

The man went into the Starbucks while the woman stood outside holding the door, said Zimeras. After about a minute, the man emerged and they drove away.

Zimeras rushed inside the coffee shop and saw the young man crumpled and unconscious on the floor, with blood pouring from his mouth, nose and ears. Zimeras said he heard from a customer that the man had punched him in the face and he had hit his head on a counter.

“I knew him, when I saw him down on the ground that he was dead, the way he was trying to breathe,” said Zimeras. “I said, ‘He won’t make it. He’s dead.’ ”