Article content continued

His grip tightened as she recoiled, and Abdi reached his left hand into the window and “grabbed” and “squeezed” her breast. The woman and her friend in the passenger seat screamed at Abdi before they sped away. They did not report the assault to police at the time.

Photo by Darren Brown / Postmedia

9:30 a.m. Bridgehead Coffee, 1024 Wellington St. W.

“I’ve just been sexually assaulted.”

Michael Rowe was quietly enjoying his morning coffee routine at the Bridgehead café he called a cornerstone of the community, when a woman walked straight up to him, looked him in the eye and said, “I’ve just been sexually assaulted.” He then heard his wife exclaim, “Oh my God, that man just jumped that lady.”

Rowe saw Abdi on top of a slight woman he had pinned to the bench where she was sitting when Abdi entered the café. People shouted at Abdi as Rowe grabbed him by the arm in a vain attempt to free the woman. He later described Abdi to police as “strong as an ox” and said Abdi had the woman in a headlock.

“He didn’t budge,” Rowe said in court. “He was like a rock. He didn’t even flinch.” Rowe wrapped his arm around Abdi’s neck and used his full body weight to prise Abdi off the woman as the two tumbled backwards. Rowe and two other men slowly backed Abdi out the door — he recalled a handshake gesture from Abdi and a smirk on his face as he left — while others inside the café called 911 to report multiple sexual assaults.

9:35 a.m. Wellington Street West bike rack

“Don’t touch her.”

Abdi knocked over an elderly man walking a small dog as he backed out the café door, then turned his attention to a woman outside parking her bicycle with her young child. Rowe stormed outside and shoved Abdi’s back into the steel bike rack when he saw Abdi had grabbed the woman by the arm, her other arm attached to the child still seated precariously in the bicycle seat. A Bridgehead manager ushered Rowe back inside the locked café and told his longtime patron the situation was under control and that police would soon arrive.